TENNIS: Davis Cup, mainly
Nov. 25th, 2023 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllI forgot to mention in my last post, but I did watch most of the men’s doubles final at the ATP Finals, where Joe Salisbury and Rajeev Ram defended their title.
On Thursday came the belated Davis Cup quarter final between Great Britain and Serbia – I think the previous quarter final had over-run. Because of injury to Dan Evans and Andy Murray, Jack Draper was the British no. 2, playing for only the second time in the Davis Cup at the age of 21, and given who the respective countries’ no. 1s were, it was a must win match. And although he was the lower ranked player, it was only by five spots and he’d beaten his opponent the one and only time they’d played, and the latter had won a run of first round matches.
I haven’t seen much of Draper (a leftie) play, but he’s got firepower. It was a physical match, but the Serbian, Kecmanovic, was playing well. He'd got into a rhythm and it was on Draper’s service games that the pressure came. The first set went to a tiebreak and two double faults from Draper didn’t help his cause. Kecmanovic’s level didn’t drop (I wondered if he’d been hitting against Djokovic), while Draper got a little more frazzled. It went to a second set tiebreak, but Serbia won the first rubber two sets to love.
Up next, Cameron Norrie and…only Novak Djokovic, the best player in the world, as he’d just demonstrated in Turin, who had committed to playing Davis Cup this year (which put the other Serbians on notice.) I will say that Norrie was playing better than he has at times this year, but it was rather academic. He managed to stave off a double break in the first set, but Djokovic won in two sets, making the doubles match unnecessary (where the Brits might have been favourites, even if they were a scratch pairing).
It also set Serbia up to face Italy in the semis. Sadly, that won't be available on iPlayer although it’s a tantalising set-up, a rematch between Djokovic and Sinner, but more interesting because the rest of the Italians are stronger than the rest of the Serbians.
On Thursday came the belated Davis Cup quarter final between Great Britain and Serbia – I think the previous quarter final had over-run. Because of injury to Dan Evans and Andy Murray, Jack Draper was the British no. 2, playing for only the second time in the Davis Cup at the age of 21, and given who the respective countries’ no. 1s were, it was a must win match. And although he was the lower ranked player, it was only by five spots and he’d beaten his opponent the one and only time they’d played, and the latter had won a run of first round matches.
I haven’t seen much of Draper (a leftie) play, but he’s got firepower. It was a physical match, but the Serbian, Kecmanovic, was playing well. He'd got into a rhythm and it was on Draper’s service games that the pressure came. The first set went to a tiebreak and two double faults from Draper didn’t help his cause. Kecmanovic’s level didn’t drop (I wondered if he’d been hitting against Djokovic), while Draper got a little more frazzled. It went to a second set tiebreak, but Serbia won the first rubber two sets to love.
Up next, Cameron Norrie and…only Novak Djokovic, the best player in the world, as he’d just demonstrated in Turin, who had committed to playing Davis Cup this year (which put the other Serbians on notice.) I will say that Norrie was playing better than he has at times this year, but it was rather academic. He managed to stave off a double break in the first set, but Djokovic won in two sets, making the doubles match unnecessary (where the Brits might have been favourites, even if they were a scratch pairing).
It also set Serbia up to face Italy in the semis. Sadly, that won't be available on iPlayer although it’s a tantalising set-up, a rematch between Djokovic and Sinner, but more interesting because the rest of the Italians are stronger than the rest of the Serbians.
