Atp Cup, it’s up to Italy. The first day of the “Alternative Davis”, organized in Australia by the ATP and which acts as a warm-up for the Australian Open, saw the clear 3-0 successes of Argentina over Georgia and Spain over Chile, and the more narrow ones for 2-1 for Serbia (without Djokovic) over Norway and Poland over Greece (Tsitsipas only played doubles)
Sunday morning will instead see the debut of Italy, inserted in group B together with Australia (qualified by right as hostess) the outgoing champion Russia (but decimated by the covid) who beat us in the final a year ago, and with France replacing Austria withdrew following the forfeit of Dominic Thiem.
It is also an opportunity to see Matteo Berrettini and Jannik Sinner side by side, our two strongest players, as unfortunately did not happen last November in the Davis Cup in Turin due to Berrettini’s injury.
Italy with Sinner and Berrettini
With Jannik and Matteo, captain Vincenzo Santipadre can also count on Fabio Fognini, Lorenzo Sonego and Simone Bolelli.
At 5 am Italian time Russia and France and Canada and the United States will face each other, starting at 7.30 – with live coverage on SuperTennis and Sky Sport – it will be the Azzurri’s turn: the first to take the field at the Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney will be Jannik Sinner, # 10 Atp, opposite James Duckworth (# 49), followed, not before 9, by Matteo Berrettini (# 7) against Alex De Minaur (# 34). To follow the double: for now the couples in the program are Bolelli-Fognini for Italy and Peers-Saville for the “kangaroos”, but the captains can change formation even at the last and in case of 1-1 we could see for the first time side by side in the field Berrettini and Sinner.
The format
The sixteen nations competing (in 2020 for the first edition there were 24, last year due to covid only 12) are admitted based on the ranking of their number one and number two (Australia enjoys a wild card as organizing country ) and divided into four groups of four teams. Each team can count on two other players, selected on the basis of the singles ranking (numbers 3 and 4 of each nation) or that of the double in the case of a choice in favor of a specialist. The teams are divided into four pots (1-4, 5-8, 9-12 and 13-16) and in each group one has been drawn for each pot. The first of each group advance to the semifinals, with direct elimination. The matches, two singles at best of three sets with toe-break, the first between numbers 1 and the second between numbers 2, followed by the double in which the third set is replaced by a super tie-break at 10 points.
The groups
group A
Serbia: Dusan Lajovic, Filip Krajinovic, Nikola Cacic, Matej Sabanov (captain Ivan Sabanov)
Norway: Casper Ruud, Viktor Durasovic, Lukas Hellum-Lilleengen, Leyton Rivera, Andreja Petrovic (captain Christian Ruud)
Cile: Cristian Garin, Alejandro Tabilo, Tomas Barrios Vera (captain Jorge Aguilar)
Spain: Roberto Bautista Agut, Pablo Carreno Busta, Albert Ramos-Vinolas, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Pedro Martinez (captain Daniel Gimeno-Traver)
group B
Russia: Daniil Medvedev, Roman Safiullin, Evgeny Karlovskiy (captain Gilles Cervara)
Italy: Matteo Berrettini, Jannik Sinner, Lorenzo Sonego, Fabio Fognini, Simone Bolelli (captain Vincenzo Santopadre)
France: Ugo Humbert, Arthur Rinderknech, Edouard Roger-Vasselin, Fabrice Martin (Captain Nicolas Copin)
Australia: Alex de Minaur, James Duckworth, Max Purcell, John Peers, Luke Saville (capitano Lleyton Hewitt)
group C
Germania: Alexander Zverev, Jan-Lennard Struff, Yannick Hanfmann, Kevin Krawietz, Tim Puetz (capitano Michael Kohlmann)
Canada: Felix Auger-Aliassime (also captain), Denis Shapovalov, Brayden Schnur, Steven Diez
Great Britain: Cameron Norrie, Daniel Evans, Liam Broady (also captain), Joe Salisbury, Jamie Murray
United States: Taylor Fritz, John Isner, Brandon Nakashima, Rajeev Ram (captain Michael Russel)
group D
Greece: Stefanos Tsitsipas, Michail Pervolarakis, Petros Tsitsipas, Markos Kalovelonis, Aristotelis Thanos (captain Apostolos Tsitsipas)
Polonia: Hubert Hurkacz, Kamil Majchrzak, Kacper Zuk, Jan Zielinski, Szymon Walkow (capitano Marcin Matkowski)
Argentina: Diego Schwartzman, Federico Delbonis, Federico Coria, Maximo Gonzalez, Andres Molteni (captain Alejandro Fabbri)
Georgia: Nikoloz Basilashvili, Aleksandre Metreveli, Aleksandre Bakshi, Zura Tkemaladze, Saba Purtseladze (Captain David Kvernadze)