Davis Cup 2018 - India

[Florian Buechting]

The DC "reform" ... or call it "funeral" is approved... I don't want to express my feelings for it, I am sure with all the words in my head, I get a lifetime ban for the forum

Good news is: I feel we play World Group 2019! Hard to imagine that there is an opposite

The two-day best-of-three winter clash in January will include
- The quarterfinal losers 2018: Germany, Belgium, Italy and Kazakhstan
- All WC Play-Off Winners, both as seeded nations
- 12 best of the remaining nations as unseeded, thereof three Asian-Oceanian Teams.

The current Asian-Ocenia teams in DC Ranking:
# 8 Australia
#13 Kazakhstan
#16 Japan
#20 India
#25 Uzbekistan
#28 China

If we beat Serbia, we are in there and seeded
If we loose, we are at least third best team (KAZ is out of the counting and the only realistic option for te Uzbek to pass us is beating Britain... Which means they are seeded and do not count in that three-team thing any more).
By the way, Japan is favourite against Bosnia...

It is likely the last time we will have a best-of-five Davis Cup tie... Need to enjoy this

[vparam]

I applaud the changes made by the ITF. When most of the top players are skipping Davis Cup and are citing the demands of playing additional weeks in a year, something had to be done. Hopefully these changes will allow us to see the top players.

[arjun2761]

I don't see anymore top players playing Davis Cup than those that already do. It's an intense additional week which many of the top players may avoid anyway. Not having the home/away ties takes away from what made Davis Cup different from a regular tournament on tour even though this is still a country vs. country set up.

I would have been OK with them shortening the DC matches to 3 sets given that it is now the standard in all tournaments outside the grand slams.

[sameerph]

Good news is: I feel we play World Group 2019! Hard to imagine that there is an opposite

The two-day best-of-three winter clash in January will include
- The quarterfinal losers 2018: Germany, Belgium, Italy and Kazakhstan
- All WC Play-Off Winners, both as seeded nations
- 12 best of the remaining nations as unseeded, thereof three Asian-Oceanian Teams.

The current Asian-Ocenia teams in DC Ranking:
# 8 Australia
#13 Kazakhstan
#16 Japan
#20 India
#25 Uzbekistan
#28 China

If we beat Serbia, we are in there and seeded
If we loose, we are at least third best team (KAZ is out of the counting and the only realistic option for te Uzbek to pass us is beating Britain... Which means they are seeded and do not count in that three-team thing any more).
By the way, Japan is favourite against Bosnia...

It is likely the last time we will have a best-of-five Davis Cup tie... Need to enjoy this

Yes, as I see we should be there in that play off in February which will be like another world group play off but we will have to win that match again go to the world group of 2019. It is not clear what will happen to the zonal groups. Will they continue to being played the way it was earlier ?

[Florian Buechting]

Yes, as I see we should be there in that play off in February which will be like another world group play off but we will have to win that match again go to the world group of 2019. It is not clear what will happen to the zonal groups. Will they continue to being played the way it was earlier ?

It is a bit strange - ITF posted something about the general DC schedule - not sure how it shall work in practise, though:

Jan / Feb: Qualification ONLY - no zonal ties
Apr: Zonal Groups II only (Home & Away), Zonal Groups III & IV (Round Robin)
Sep: Zonal Groups I & II (Home & Away), Zonal Groups III & IV again (Round Robin)

I guess that the Groups III and IV either play on the one date or on the other. As we will beat Germany in Cologne in January , we have time to find out how it works in practice next year

There is some more, see https://www.daviscup.com/en/news/290055.aspx

Zone Groups I and II will be divided into six Europe/Africa ties, three Americas ties and three Asia/Oceania ties. All Zone Group I ties will be played in September, while nations in Zone Group II will have the choice to contest their ties in April or September.

The format will remain unchanged from the trials that were introduced in 2018, with ties being made up of four singles matches and one doubles match contested over the space of two days. The only difference in 2019 and beyond is that there will just be one round of competition in Zone Groups I and II.

The 12 Zone Group I winners will advance to the following year’s Finals qualifying event, while the 12 Zone Group I losers will contest Zone Group action the following year.

[sameerph]

So, it is basically similar format as before. Only they have shortened the zonal group into 1 round instead of 2 and included 3 Asia-Oceania teams into playoffs unlike 2 earlier. So, we will have a playoff tie in February. If we lose that we will have to play zonal tie in September which we will need to win to get back to play offs of next year. The flip side of this shortened zonal format is if we lose a match at zonal stage, we will have no second chance and will be relegated to zone II .

Anyway, hoping that we will one of the 2 play off ties - this September against Serbia or next February against whoever we draw to get into 2019 world group weekly final.

[Florian Buechting]

Hi,
no news on the ITF site, but you can buy tickets for the Davis Cup tie:

http://www.eventim.rs/en/tickets/davis- ... event.html

The prices are ridiculously low - I paid more shipment than the tickets itself. Thus, I decided to have some, though I expect to be there as a photographer with the ITD guys.

Cheers,
Florian

Edit: for the Doubles rubber, the tickets are roughly 3 USD. There do not seem to be too many tickets on sale, maybe 1000 or so... We could buy them all and have a home match Unfortunately, limited to 4 per person

[jaydeep]

There do not seem to be too many tickets on sale, maybe 1000 or so... We could buy them all and have a home match Unfortunately, limited to 4 per person

[bujilover]

Team announced for Serbia tie:

Yuki, Rohan, Divij, Ramk, Prajnesh and Saki.

No complaints and I wish this energetic squad

[jaydeep]

Now, Divij is also out due to injury and Sumit decided to skip as he want to concentrate on last few weeks of clay challengers ... Bala is replacement for Divij.

Yuki Bhambri, Divij Sharan pull out of Serbia tie; Sumit Nagal refuses to come as stand-by

Sharan, who won the men’s doubles gold with Rohan Bopanna in Palembang, has suffered a tear in his shoulder and Bhambri’s knee injury flared up at the US Open, where he lost in the first round to Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert.

“They have pulled out due to injuries. Divij had undergone an MRI in the US and he said it revealed a minor tear which will require at least three weeks to heal. Yuki also has a knee issue,” AITA selection committee chairman S P Misra told PTI.

Asked about Nagal as a possible replacement, Misra said AITA reached out to him but he preferred to play Challenger tournaments in Poland during that time.

“We asked him to come as a replacement for Yuki but he said he would prefer playing Challengers,” Misra said.

AITA secretary Hironmoy Chatterjee said Nagal’s decision “surprised” the Federation.

“He said Ramkumar and Prajnesh will play singles matches and he has to come as a stand-by, so he would play Challengers. He said if he is needed, he will join but we do not pick players on conditions. We have told him, he will not be considered for this tie,” Chatterjee said.

“For future ties, we will discuss, if he will be considered or not,” Chatterjee said.

[bujilover]

Literally no chance to even win the doubles tie now.

[jaydeep]

I think Jeevan was a better option with Rohan rather than Bala, as both having experience of playing together with their exploit at Chennai open.

[prasen9]

It is sad that Nagal decided to skip. AITA should figure out whether he should be called in the future or about support. Those who play Davis Cup should be given priority wrt support by the federation. But the federation may be doing nothing anyway. So, he has nothing to lose.

Leander and Jeevan were not picked either! I will go with the selector's hunch that the pairing with Bopanna makes most sense.

[Rajiv]

The Serbian team will be Filip Krajinović, Dušan Lajović, Laslo Đere, Nikola Milojević and Peđa Krstin.

A fighting chance if our players raise their game and in Davis Cup anything can happen.

[Rajiv]

Ninad Zemonjic the Non playing captain seems to have a healthy respect for our team, and is not underestimating our guys and he feels our singles guys can surprise them (Serbia) , plus he goes on to say that in Doubles the Indians would be favourites ,( Probably he commented being unaware about Dvij's pulls out), But overall he(Ninad) seems to confident of making it back to the world group.