Davis Cup Finals 2021

When it comes to tennis, everyone can name a few players, regardless if they are tennis fans or not. The news is full of tennis events and players name, so even if you're not a fan, you know one or two. However, when it comes to countries, things are not so clear anymore.

Having a look at the ATP ranking, it is clear which countries have more players in the first 50, but even so, when it comes to competition, every position counts.

We're used to ATP tours, in which each player is playing for himself and there are only a few events that are different. One of which i have enjoyed a lot is the Laver Cup, which took place a couple of months ago, the other is the Davis Cup Finals.

The Finals, formerly known as World Group, will be the highest level of Davis Cup competition in 2021. It will be held on indoor hard courts at three venues in Innsbruck, Austria, Madrid, Spain and Turin, Italy. source

The 18 best national teams are assigned to the World Group and compete annually for the Davis Cup. Nations which are not in the World Group compete in one of three regional zones (Americas, Asia/Oceania, and Europe/Africa). The competition is spread over four weekends during the year. Each elimination round between competing nations is held in one of the countries, and is played as the best of five matches (4 singles, 1 doubles). The ITF determines the host countries for all possible matchups before each year's tournament. source

Bring The Best 5 On!

Each country can participate with 5 players who can play single and double as well and this is where the fun begins. Does a country have 5 tennis players? Obviously some countries do, others don't. The next question is how good those players are.

If you look at the teams here you can notice which countries are in the best position.

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Unfortunately Spain was missing a few good players as Nadal is still dealing with his injury, Roberto Bautista Agut, who's 19 ATP was also not participating and another player, Carlos Alcaraz (32 ATP), who could have helped the team a lot was also missing from the competition. The other crippled team was the US team, that only had 3 top level players, Taylor Fritz was absent for some reason.

Having a couple of top level players missing put the pressure on the other player and had serious consequences. Both the US and Spain got eliminated too early in my opinion, but with just a few top level players what chances did they have?

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The biggest surprise for me was Italy. Apart from Simone Bolelli, the rest of the players are ranked between 10 and 59 ATP and are quite good, yet they got knocked out by Croatia.

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Spain is the title holder, the Spaniards won the last tournament in 2019 as last year there was no tournament due to covid. The Spanish guys however were not able to defend the title this year. I bet Nadal and the others were sitting in front of the TV and feeling bad, but I suppose there was no other choice.

Russia on the other hand is thriving. They have four players in top 30, which no team has, so it would be a shame not to do well. I see them in the finals already as facing Germany will not be a problem. Germany's best player is missing but even Zverev alone could not do much, the rest of the team can't compete against the Russian elite.

The other semi-final is clear as well as the Serbs are way better than the Croats. I may be wrong, but I don't think so.

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If the final will be played between the Russians and the Croats, I'd be the most happy tennis fan. I'd love to see some high quality tennis and these two teams can definitely provide that. It's very likely the Russian guys are going to take home the title though and I would say it would be well deserved.

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A Wake Up Call

This is a good way for countries to see where they need to improve. Having prepared the next generation is crucial here. Italy is the only country I see doing a great job. They have a young generation trying to get the necessary experience to move to the top and in a few years we are going to see them in top ten.

The dominance is broken, 2021 was the year for the tennis world to realize Federer is close to retiring, Nadal is not his best self anymore and this injuty has set him back a lot. Djokovic is trying to hold strong but it takes him more effort each day and won't be able to forever.