Davis Cup: Somehow great days in Málaga
Canada won the Davis Cup for the first time yesterday. After six matchdays in Málaga that were fun. Not all. But most. A balance sheet.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Nov 27, 2022, 06:14 pm
The format
There's no need to argue that the team competition that ended yesterday in Malaga with the Canadians' victory is still the one that Dwight Davis created in 1900. Answer: of course not. But on the one hand there were always small changes (originally the Davis Cup was a competition between the USA and Great Britain, until gradually the world was allowed to participate).
On the other hand, the question is when was the last Davis Cup final that was played in the classic style and that is remembered (the correct answer: 2016 in Zagreb, when Argentina beat Croatians). The current format has its weaknesses. But one of the strengths is certainly that tennis fans from at least eight other countries have turned their attention to Malaga this week.
The organizers
As an outsider, you don't know whether milk and honey is actually flowing for the tennis associations as a result of the new world order in the Davis Cup (suspicion: rather no). But you have to give Kosmos and his frontman Gerard Piqué one thing: If there are optimization requests and potential, then this will be used. Which didn't help the French in the intermediate round in Hamburg. But with this new phase, four more nations have been allowed to play a home game. And the first round is still played almost classically.
In addition: With Málaga, initially more of an emergency solution, the ITF and Kosmos seem to have done a lot right. A total of 61,916 paying spectators made the pilgrimage to the hall over the six days. And the atmosphere was still good even after the Spaniards had already been eliminated.
The winners
Canada fielded the top two individual players and unsurprisingly won in the end. Wait a minute, the Germans will say (more on that in a moment): Denis Shapovalov didn't break anything in the quarterfinals and semifinals in singles. It's correct. But the two Canadian individual aces are also competent as pair skaters.
Little asterisk: Actually, Canada was already eliminated this year after a 0:4 in the Netherlands. But after the Russians were kicked out of the competition after invading Ukraine, the eventual winners were still allowed to play in the intermediate round.
The Germans
It was done after Jan-Lennard Struff's opening win against Denis Shapovalov. And in the first set of Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz's doubles, there was nothing to suggest that Germany wouldn't make it to the semifinals. And then this match was lost after all. With Alexander Zverev it would have looked different overall. But of course the Spaniards, who had to do without Carlos Alcaraz (and also Rafael Nadal), can also say that.
The Croatians were hit even harder than Michael Kohlmann's team. They were 1-1 against Australia and could hope for a Mektic/Pavic double and thus a safe win. Until Jordan Thompson and Max Purcell dismissed this idea as not good enough.