Maria Kirilenko was forced from the Russian Fed Cup lineup because she re-injured her leg. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova played in Maria’s place, but lost against both Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic. Serbia won the tie 3-2 with Jankovic sweeping Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-1, 6-4, in the clinching match.
Novak Djokovic was sitting at home watching Serbia get knocked out of the Davis Cup! Novak you should have been there!
Here are the highlights of the Davis Cup match between Australia’s Matthew Ebden and South Korea’s Suk-Young Jeong. Ebden won in straight sets 6-3 6-3 6-4.
Here are the Davis Cup highlights between Australia and South Korea. This is the doubles rubber that gave Australia the win 3-0. Chris Guccione and Marinko Matosevic defeated Suk-Young Jeong and Jae-Min Seol in four sets.
Janko Tipsarevic just defeated Radek Stepanek in a marathon Davis Cup match. Tipsarevic won 5-7 6-4 6-4 4-6 9-7. However, it was not without incident as Stepanek didnt shake hands at the end of the match and their were some choice words said.
Davic Cup tie is now 1-1.
Dan Evans lost his match against Olivier Rochus 36 64 76 64 in the second rubber of the Davis Cup tie between Great Britain and Belgium, the Brit started well and dominated the first set. Throughout the second set many errors crept into Evans game and his first serve deserted him, while Rochus started playing a crushing passing shot that earned him the set. During the third set the players were evenly matched, a true test of grit and determination, which Rochus won after a controversial line call. Dan Evans showed the mental strength we saw at Great Britain’s last tie, to break in the fourth set and take the lead but his inexperience at this level showed and his game crumbled under the pressure placed by the Belgian. Rochus broke back and held to leave Evans serving to stay in the match, two unforced errors and an atrocious drop shot left the Brit scrambling to stay in the match, his efforts weren’t enough and Belgium broke to go two rubbers too love up in the tie.
With Josh Goodall losing his earlier rubber, Great Britain have got to win the next three rubbers in a row to keep their chance of returning to the world groups alive! It seems to all be going Belgium’s way at the moment, Team GB have got a mountain to climb.
The Great Britain team are playing their Davis Cup match this weekend without Andy Murray. Its going to be tough, but the team looks quietly confident.
Tennis Australia was nice enough to send us the video of their Davis Cup draw against South Korea. The draw was held at Brisbane’s Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.
It seems like Tennis Australia has finally worked out how social media works and they are the best tennis organisation online at the moment.
Jason Kubler is an Australian player on the rise. Jason is only 18 and he has just won his fourth Future tournament. Jason just won the ITF Future tournament in Bundaberg (Queensland, Australia) over (8) John Millman 6-4 1-6 6-1.
“It’s always nice to win in Australia, it’s the first time I’ve done it, so that’s good.
“It was a tough match and I was getting pretty tired out there, I was just lucky enough to get the third set.
“John is a very good player, he is always going to come out and try as hard as he can. I knew that coming into the match and I just had to try as hard as I could and see who was going to win,” said Kubler.
Nathan Healey (Australian tennis coach and ex-professional player) is said to be recovering in hospital after undergoing emergency heart surgery.
Healey’s wife told Tennis Australia that Healey required the surgery due to a spontaneous rupture in Philadelphia on Monday.
“He is now recovering at University of Pennsylvania Hospital and is expected to make a full recovery. Nathan, his wife Marnie and children Ana and Zarah thank everyone for their support,” she said in a message.
Jack Sock is an up and coming player who we haven’t really featured much here on TheTennisTimes. Thus, we found a great video that shows him player against Andre Dome at the 2011 Seascape Challenger event.
Frank Dancevic has been improving of late and has qualified in the Dallas Challenger tournament and then went on to win the entire tournament. Dancevic won the final over Igor Andreev (previously 18 in the world) 7-6 6-3. This game Dancevic the winners cheque of $18,000.
p.s. Frank Dancevic made tennis history in 2011 by becoming the first player to reach the main draw of all four majors through the respective qualifying tournaments at the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open.
Maria Sharapova will be skipping the Fed Cup semifinal for Russia against Serbia. The match is scheduled to be played in April, but it seems like this does fit in with Maria’s schedule. Very interesting to see that she has no national pride whatsoever.
Ashleigh Barty recently won the Mildura Pro Tour tournament, her second consecutive $25,000 Pro Tour win. Barty defeated fellow Australian, Viktorija Rajicic 6-1 7-6(8) in the final today.
Watch out for Barty to have a very strong 2012 and Im sure we will see this 15 year old on the WTA Tour in 2013.
Heinz Guenthardt is the new Swiss Fed Cup Captain. The Swiss Tennis Federation appointed Heinz today and it will be interesting to see if he can get the leading Swiss female players to play for the team and gets some wins.
Guenthardt has a very strong background as he has coached top players like Steffi Graf, Ana Ivanovic and Andrea Petkovic.
Wilson have renewed their sponsorship of the Davis Cup and Fed Cup. Wilson will remain the Official Ball of Davis Cup and Fed Cup for another five years, starting in 2013 through 2017.
Here is the first rubber from the Davis Cup tie happening at the moment between Australia and China.
Australian Fed Cup captain Dave Taylor speaks about the Australian team’s 4-1 win over Switzerland in Fribourg.
The ITF have finally decided to expand the use of Hawk-Eye replay technology for all rounds in the Davis Cup and Fed Cup World Groups.
The replay technology is used only for matches on hard and grass courts. Thus, it will be interesting to see if can be added to clay courts. Plus, with this addition does that mean the ITF will pay for Hawk-Eye to be implemented? or will the clubs or national organisations need to pay?
