Davis cup. Ukraine Has Defeated Israel, Now What?

Ukraine’s national tennis team ended the Davis Cup First World Group team meeting against Israel with a tense victory on Saturday. After the doubles match, the Ukrainians burned 1: 2, but still managed to take their toll in singles.

Why was it so difficult?

Initially, the doubles match was considered the only troublesome encounter. Israeli captain Yonatan Ehrlich, 43, is a world-class doubles player who has won more than 20 ATP tournaments and also won the Australian Open. Unsurprisingly, the meeting turned out to be the same, some minor nuances were decided.

The singles matches on the first day of play impressed me much more. Ehrlich initially made a knight play and in place of the team’s familiar second number Ishay Oliel, he put in a little-known Daniel Zuckerman, who has a late-800s rating. In the match with this same Zuckerman, our first racket Ilya Marchenko lost the first 9 out of 10 games and only after that did he manage to find the keys to victory. It turned out that if you tap gently on the left, Daniel does not know what to do with it. This escape was enough to win.

Sergei Stakhovsky was second on the court and his match was painfully reminiscent of Sergei’s first meeting in the clash with Chinese Taipei. Stakhovsky clearly lacked humor for the match, some emotions. Perhaps the support of the audience could have helped, but not this time. Fortunately, both Marchenko and Stakhovsky won their individual matches on Saturday. We were a bit surprised by Zuckerman’s replacement by Oliel before the final match, but it definitely helped us. Perhaps Ehrlich thought that Daniel had already noticed, the second time it would not be possible to surprise him with the game.

Whats Next?

And now to the fun part. During the March 2020 draw, in accordance with the rules in force at that time, our partner’s winner went directly to the qualifying round with the subsequent opportunity to enter the Davis Cup Final. Now the rules have unfortunately changed, not in our favor. At the moment, only 8 of the 12 winners with the best rating go directly there. Four more will make joints to eliminate two losers.

So far, only two matches of the First World Group have been played. In addition to us, the Japanese predicted victory, they easily occupied Pakistan. The third seed, Japan, can say with 100% certainty that the task is complete, they are already in qualification. All other party meetings will take place September 17-19, 2021.

There are two options: optimistic and close to reality

Considering that we are currently in 35th place in the ranking of nations, we are not only surpassed by all the seeded teams, but also by four non-seeded teams. By the way, Pakistan was one of them, so the outcome of their confrontation with Japan did not matter to us.

Optimistic option is that four seeded teams from certain couples must lose in September. Since unseeded Slovakia, Uruguay and Finland are higher in the rankings, then expecting victories from Bolivia, Belarus, Norway, Lebanon, New Zealand, Romania and Peru (highlighted in green in the table). We need at least 4 wins from these 7 teams… Then we will be among the top eight with the best qualification.

First World Group

Real option it is that we get among the four worst winners of the rating and in November we go to the joints. In this case, a win over Israel gives nothing at all, except possibly rating points.

As for the possibilities of the rest of the teams, it makes no sense to evaluate them without knowing the composition and coverage. On the positive side, it can be noted that 6 of the 7 teams that interest us will play at home. In Davis Cup, this significantly increases the odds even against notable favorites.

As you can see, after the victory over Israel, nothing depends on us. We are looking forward to the September games and vaccinations, after which the fans must return to the stands, and we are rooting for the unseeded.