Davis Cup: Austria's hopes once again rest on Dennis Novak
Dennis Novak leads the Austrian team battling for a place in the Davis Cup 2022 final round in Seoul on Friday and Saturday. The 28-year-old was almost always reliable in decisive matches.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Mar 01, 2022, 07:58 am
The team of the Austrian Tennis Association (ÖTV) has long since arrived in Seoul, from Friday it's about the renewed qualification for the final tournament in the Davis Cup. 2021 could have been a festival, Innsbruck was ready, world number one Novak Djokovic as an opponent too - the corona pandemic raised vehement objections, it was played in front of empty ranks. So now the tricky task in South Korea, under the new team boss Jürgen Melzer and without the veteran Philipp Oswald, who was unable to travel to the 1988 Olympic city due to a corona infection.
The starting position is interesting, it is difficult to identify a clear favorite role in the individual games. A short-term expansion to include the best player in the country - like Germany experienced when Alexander Zverev played in Brazil - was not an option for Melzer and Co. Dominic Thiem is preparing for his comeback in Indian Wells in Miami, traveling to South Korea without match practice would have been a very daring idea.
Soonwoo Kwon top ranked single player
And so Dennis Novak should fix it. And Yuriy Rodionov. From the ATP world rankings, that is not at all a matter of course, at least in comparison with the Korean top man SoonWoo Kwon: He is 65th in the current ATP charts, Novak 143, Rodionov as number 194 even further behind.
Rodionov in particular has had a couple of respectable results this season, especially the win against Maxime Cressy in the first round in Dallas gives reason for hope. As well as the fact that the 22-year-old left-hander was extremely close to success in the subsequent match against Vasek Pospisil, only one point was missing for the next surprise.
Novak always strong in Davis Cup
Novak, on the other hand, has the semifinals at the ATP Challenger tournament in Quimper as his best result, the last match victory was against Gastao Elias in Cherbourg, also in a Challenger. In the case of Dennis Novak, that means little. Especially in the Davis Cup he likes to surpass himself. Just remember the win against Cristian Garin in Salzburg in 2019, the decisive point in Finland in the same year against Harri Heliovaara or Novak's double strike in Premstätten against the Cuevas brothers.
Alexander Erler and Lucas Miedler, the Kitzbühel champions from last summer, are initially planned for the doubles. Maybe the boss will also help out personally, Jürgen Melzer's expertise as a doubles player has always helped in recent years. In any case, there should be beatable opponents on the other side of the net: While Erler and Miedler scrape the top 100 in the ATP charts, no Korean player is listed better than 247th place (JiSum Nam).