Valencia hosts the group stage of the Spanish team against Canada, South Korea and Serbia
MADRID, 12 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Davis Cup returns to the courts this Tuesday in Bologna, Glasgow, Hamburg and Valencia, four cities that will host the group stage of the Finals between this Tuesday and Sunday, and in which the Spanish city will acclaim its team, led by the brand new world number one Carlos Alcaraz against Canada, South Korea and Serbia, who will have the absence of Novak Djokovic for “personal reasons”.
La Fuente de San Luis, the Valencia Basket pavilion, will host group B, a show more than guaranteed with a national team that will arrive radiant with the Murcian at the top of the ATP ranking at 19 years old, after winning at dawn on Sunday the US Open, his first ‘Grand Slam’, a success that could affect him because he will land without time to acclimatize.
Together with him, the team made up of Roberto Bautista, Pablo Carreño, Marcel Granollers and Alberto Ramos – the latter replacing Alejandro Davidovich due to injury – will seek one of the two places that will give access to the knockout stages of the final phase. An objective for which they will fight mainly against a Serbia without its clear reference and Canada, with Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime, the number 8 in the world already recovered from his physical problems.
Spain will debut against Serbia on Wednesday, September 14. Later they will play their second tie against Canada on Friday the 16th and will close the group stage on Sunday the 18th against South Korea, always starting at 4:00 p.m., at La Fonteta and on an indoor hard court. The first two will qualify for the ‘Salad Bowl’ crosses to be held in Malaga from November 21 to 27.
CROATIA, FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES, THEORETICALLY ‘FAVORITE’
On the other hand, Group A will be played in Bologna and will feature Croatia, the current leader in the team standings. A team automatically qualified for the last phase by proclaiming itself a finalist in the previous edition against Russia, excluded indefinitely from the competition due to the war against Ukraine.
Thus, the Croats, led by Marin Ciclic, will try to prevail over the host Italy, who will come with a sore Jannik Sinner after falling in the quarterfinals of the US Open against Alcaraz, and the Argentina of Diego Schwartzman and Sebastian Baez, who will return to play the Finals for the second time after failing to qualify in the last edition. Without forgetting Sweden, the fifth country that has won the Davis Cup the most times (7).
In group C, Alexander Zverev’s last-minute withdrawal leaves a team that was looking for its Olympic champion touched, after his rupture of three lateral ligaments suffered in June during Roland Garros. However, the 25-year-old tennis player has a bone edema in the same foot and is absent for the appointment in Hamburg, his hometown.
France, third in the team ranking -behind Spain-, will seek their place in the quarterfinals with the late addition of veteran Richard Gasquet. Australia will also try, which is entrusted to Alex de Miñaur as the first sword of the ‘aussie’ team due to the absence of Kyrgios. And Belgium, runner-up three times and led by David Goffin.
Finally, the city of Glasgow hosts group D where the United States enters the game, the nation with the highest number of wins (32) and which comes with a team full of young players hungry to do important things, as is the case by Taylor Fritz or Frances Tiafoe, eliminated by Juan Carlos Ferrero’s pupil in the semifinals of the North American ‘Grand Slam’. Opposite will be the Great Britain of Cameron Norrie and Andy Murray, along with the Netherlands and Kazakhstan.