Davis Cup 2018 - India

[arjun2761]

Agree with Prashant. At the WG level, the most likely result for RamK is 0 wins with some chance of 1 win and very low probability of 2 wins. Yuki has a higher probability of getting 1 win but 2 wins would also be quite a stretch for him as well. Of course, if they improve further during the year then those odds may improve.

[Varma]

If we draw Switzerland, we will be punching our ticket to WG barring major screw up on our end. There is no way in hell Fed or Stan playing this tie. If I am not wrong, Federer ruled himself out stating it in one of his interviews. Even if Stan is 100% fit, he will prefer playing tour events to make up for his lost time.

Next best bets would be Japan (without Nishikori), followed by Britain (without Andy Murray and Kyle Edmund).

Beating any of the remaining five teams is highly improbable.

- Varma

[jayakris]

Agree with Prashant. At the WG level, the most likely result for RamK is 0 wins with some chance of 1 win and very low probability of 2 wins. Yuki has a higher probability of getting 1 win but 2 wins would also be quite a stretch for him as well. Of course, if they improve further during the year then those odds may improve.

Like Ronald Reagan once said, there you go again... focusing on the singles. Ramk has probably 35% chance to win one match and maybe less than 10% chance to win two against most of the opponents. But there is no point in focusing on singles. The captain can't do a thing about what ends up happening in singles. That is what that is. But we have a chance to increase out odds for winning the doubles match from 30% to 80% if we do some planning.

If our expected wins are 0.75 and 0.45 from Yuki (against the #2 and #1 of the other teams), 0.35 and 0.25 from RamK, then we better have a 0.80 from the double match to add up the expected wins to 2.60. (Anything more than an expected 2.50 matches is a higher than 50% chance in the tie). If we keep the doubles chance at 0.30, then we will be always have an expected total of 0.75+0.45+0.35+0.25+0.3 = 2.10, and even any variance will cause probably only a 5% chance to win the tie. My point is that there is nothing we can do on the 1.80 wins from the singles. That number goes up to 2.1 in India and down to 1.5 abroad in singles. We need a solid 0.8 wins from doubles all the time, to have any reasonable chance to advance. If we can win only 0.3 matches in doubles (3 out of 10) against world group playoff teams, we will almost always lose the tie. That can be raised to 7 or 8 out of 10 easily if we ask our doubles players to have had match experience together. Eminently doable, with all the options we have in doubles. We should be focusing on doubles, and leaving the singles to whoever is in form and comes ready to play.

Also note that raising the expected doubles win from 0.3 matches to 0.8 matches is like replacing a RamK with a Somdev or a second Yuki (of the very recent top-75 type form). We are not there now and have no option to magically build a second singles player, so all we must focus on, is doubles!

With a top-50 quality LP of a bit better odds than the best of Yuki now, but a second player with probably a bit less odds than top-150 quality RamK (i.e., a top-175 quality Mahesh), we made the world group multiple times and reached the SF once too. That is because we had some 0.90 expected wins in doubles those days. We can't hope for near 100% chance like in the LP-MB days but we can hope for a 75% chance in doubles quite easily right now.

[PKBasu]

At least this year, if we are playing a home match, we should pick grass. RamK beat last year's form player Thiem on grass, and Yuki came mighty close to beating Dustin Brown in one of his first grass matches last year. On grass (and particularly the proper grass of the South Club in Calcutta, or Lucknow or even DLTA), we will beat almost anyone. Kyle Edmund doesn't scare me either, with a boisterous home crowd behind us.
Doubles should be Paes-Bopanna this year, assuming that Leander stays fit and able until September.

[jayakris]

Doubles should be Paes-Bopanna this year, assuming that Leander stays fit and able until September.

No disrespect to either guy, but I think they have almost no chance to beat all but the worst couple of doubles teams we will face. It will be losses against at least 6 of the 8 teams (0.25 expected wins).

But if they play even 2 events together before the tie, they will beat perhaps any team (0.85 expected wins). There is no chance for that to happen. If they are not willing to do what is needed for India, sorry, I do not want to see LP-Bops at the WG playoff.

Either LP or Bops playing with any other top-125 player in India for say 3 events and 5-6 matches before the tie, is enough to beat 6 of the the 8 teams (0.75 expected win). I will go for that. If neither is willing to do that, we go to the third guy (Divij) and ask him to get ready to play with somebody else and get ready. Even that team will have a 0.50 expected chance to win in the match. I will take that over the 0.25 that LP or RB gives with some other player. If Divij won't do it, I will go to Purav. So on the down the line. In the end I will probably end up asking Vishnu/Balaji to get ready.... If I were the captain ....

Bottom line: No top doubles player is normally able to win much at the high level by just walking in with another top-100 doubles player (but they can win, with a top-50 singles player very often). If two doubles specialists play together and are experienced together, the odds go up drastically though.

[PKBasu]

Agree on this, but try telling that to Mahesh, Rohan and Leander! Or to our "selectors" and the assorted hangers-on of Indian tennis, who love the politics (of selecting) but hate the mechanics (of winning).

[jayakris]

...who love the politics (of selecting) but hate the mechanics (of winning).

Couldn't have characterized it any better or any more succinctly!

[Sin Hombre]

I wouldn't extrapolate from Ram beating Thiem in a 250 event to saying that we should play on grass at home.

Medium-fast hard is Yuki's best surface and that is what we should use.

[knarayen]

Agree with Prashant. At the WG level, the most likely result for RamK is 0 wins with some chance of 1 win and very low probability of 2 wins. Yuki has a higher probability of getting 1 win but 2 wins would also be quite a stretch for him as well. Of course, if they improve further during the year then those odds may improve.

Like Ronald Reagan once said, there you go again... focusing on the singles. Ramk has probably 35% chance to win one match and maybe less than 10% chance to win two against most of the opponents. But there is no point in focusing on singles. The captain can't do a thing about what ends up happening in singles. That is what that is. But we have a chance to increase out odds for winning the doubles match from 30% to 80% if we do some planning.

If our expected wins are 0.75 and 0.45 from Yuki (against the #2 and #1 of the other teams), 0.35 and 0.25 from RamK, then we better have a 0.80 from the double match to add up the expected wins to 2.60. (Anything more than an expected 2.50 matches is a higher than 50% chance in the tie). If we keep the doubles chance at 0.30, then we will be always have an expected total of 0.75+0.45+0.35+0.25+0.3 = 2.10, and even any variance will cause probably only a 5% chance to win the tie. My point is that there is nothing we can do on the 1.80 wins from the singles. That number goes up to 2.1 in India and down to 1.5 abroad in singles. We need a solid 0.8 wins from doubles all the time, to have any reasonable chance to advance. If we can win only 0.3 matches in doubles (3 out of 10) against world group playoff teams, we will almost always lose the tie. That can be raised to 7 or 8 out of 10 easily if we ask our doubles players to have had match experience together. Eminently doable, with all the options we have in doubles. We should be focusing on doubles, and leaving the singles to whoever is in form and comes ready to play.

Also note that raising the expected doubles win from 0.3 matches to 0.8 matches is like replacing a RamK with a Somdev or a second Yuki (of the very recent top-75 type form). We are not there now and have no option to magically build a second singles player, so all we must focus on, is doubles!

With a top-50 quality LP of a bit better odds than the best of Yuki now, but a second player with probably a bit less odds than top-150 quality RamK (i.e., a top-175 quality Mahesh), we made the world group multiple times and reached the SF once too. That is because we had some 0.90 expected wins in doubles those days. We can't hope for near 100% chance like in the LP-MB days but we can hope for a 75% chance in doubles quite easily right now.

Wow jay. I think we can actually capture the algorithm that you describe above into a machine learning application. We can then offer it to Hess to use for choosing the DC squad. Lets talk some more.

Prof

[Florian Buechting]

I have already been cheering when Argentina has been drawn against Columbia... But it is... Serbia Abroad tie, hard to imagine that we have a chance there against the stunning crowds

Travel assistance is of course given any time... Will definitely try to go there (honestly, have never been on Serbian soil so far...).

[Rajiv]

That's a tough away match , But if based on the lineup of Serbia's R1 against USA where their top 3 did not play , than I guess still a fighting chance as Ram has win oven Dusan Lajovic last year at Cincinnati , and surely LP/Bops can win a point ,
But all of this purely speculative , on assumption that Serbia's top 3 singles players won't be in the starting line up.

[Amandeep]

and the eerie coincidence continues. The last campaign on which Leander and mb were together for India was Brazil 2010, the only other instance where India came back from 2-0 down.

And who did we draw next then? Serbia away.

[Prashant]

Tough tough draw. Have to hope that the top Serbians don't play...

[VReddy]

I have already been cheering when Argentina has been drawn against Columbia... But it is... Serbia Abroad tie, hard to imagine that we have a chance there against the stunning crowds

Travel assistance is of course given any time... Will definitely try to go there (honestly, have never been on Serbian soil so far...).

Serbia has visa-free policy for Indian Citizens. Shall be there (incase I don't get kicked out of my workplace/Switzerland ofcourse, touchwood) - hopefully you will be there too. If it happens, will only be the second time to meet fellow SI member after Sandeep.

[VReddy]

Tough tough draw. Have to hope that the top Serbians don't play...

They have 5 top-100 players . So tough irrespective. Need some miracles from Yuki.