Swiss flag flutters over Davis-Cup
We have seen the familiar face of Maestro Roger Federer behind almost every celebrated Tennis Championship but never behind the century old inter nation team competition trophy – the Davis-Cup.
Roger Federer and his team mate Stanislas Wawrinka made that too come to pass, in 2014. Switzerland beat France on French soil. It was Wawrinka who carried the team through the tough ride.
Switzerland is the 14th nation to win the coveted Davis cup in its 115 year history. World’s number 4, Wawrinka stemmed the Swiss victory being involved in two of the first three matches won by Switzerland.
‘Stan the Man’
On the first day, Stanislas Wawrinka, beat Frenchman Wilfred Tsonga in a sensational match. The Frenchman played the tie on slow clay, hoping to lower the fire-power of the Swiss singles players. Even with this, there was no shortage of aces from ‘Stan’ as he is known in Switzerland now. His service department has shown the biggest development in 2014 with speed and consistency. It has been a significant factor for his current top end position in the world ranking.
On the other hand flamboyant Frenchman Tsonga has just kept himself afloat by his standard and ended up in the second ten of the world ranking. In this match, Wawrinka’s game had the fire-power in his serve and ground strokes along with court coverage speed. Tsonga could not sustain the streaks of brilliance that came up time to time, to take home a win for France.
Then, the unexpected happened. In the second singles France’s Monfils beat Federer convincingly in straight sets. Davis-Cup motivates and brings out the best in players. I have seen this time and again in the Davis Cup teams that I had the opportunity to coach.
In this match, Monfils rode an up-beat motivation to beat none other than Federer. It was a commendable performance by him. Federer is on a comeback spell from his back injury after the ATP semi-finals in London. Knowing Federer, he would never have got on to the court if he was not fit. For this reason, Monfil’s win over Federer cannot be discounted as a freak win. Monfils was the former world junior number one and few among the junior ranked players, to make a big impact in Open-Tennis. His 2014 season has been rather quiet.
This made Wawrinka take the burden to win. He had to win every match he played. Federer and Wawrinka won the doubles beating France’s Julien Benneteau world ranked 25 and Richard Gasquet ranked 26. Doubles is an all court game and it was Wawrinka who was the best ‘game-maker’ of the four.
His serve has become a hallmark and it worked extremely well to save the match in many critical situations. Then with all court mastery, he setup the advantage for many of the finishes which Federer executed at net with ‘Swiss precision.’ Federer and Wawrinka, both have performed well at net even in their singles this year although the pair does not play regular doubles throughout the year. ‘Stan’ took the responsibility to win the doubles and that made him to be the man who won the Davis-Cup for Switzerland.
In the final match, Richard Gasquet looked surprised to be playing Roger Federer which became the decider. It should have been Wilfred Tsonga. I do not know why Tsonga did not play that match. Federer finished Gasquet in straight sets to take the tie. The ‘French dilemma’ surfaced fielding Gasquet for the first reverse singles.
French scene
France does not have any players in the top ten in 2014 ranking. Wilfred Tsonga is 12. Between him and Richard Gasquet who is 26, France has 4 players. France has opted for the experienced players and left 21 ranked Simon Gilles out. The dilemma France had was that Switzerland had two from the world’s top 5. I feel even if Federer did not win his second singles for whatever reason, Wawrinka would have beaten Monfils in the final rubber. Very rarely or never has the Davis Cup been won without a top ten player in the team. France could not get a player into the top ten throughout this year.
The current French players had a golden era winning the Davis Cup in 2011 and featuring in Grand slam finals in the past few years. It seems like France is going out of steam for good replacement of the present lineup. It is this that made French number one Wilfred Tsonga to express excitement but also fear prior to this Davis cup which was played on French soil.
Davis-Cup team anatomy
If one can recall, Federer was not available to the Swiss Davis-Cup team for some time. Ever since Wawrinka came into the top ten, Federer has been in the Swiss team. This makes sense. The best team composition for Davis-Cup is to have two good singles players who can win up to three singles and a dependable doubles pair who can help round off if the third singles fails. This is the best guarantee and is a very difficult ‘combo’ to achieve without the depth of good players in a country.
Davis Cup being best-of-five-set matches, depending on the singles player to play the doubles, is a very risky proposition. If the singles player plays doubles as well, he could be in three five set matches without recovery time in between. Such pressure will take any player to the threshold of injuries, many countries with one good player.
Multiple Davis Cup Champions, the USA has the best doubles combination in Bryan brothers now. They have been the world’s number one for a while. Right now, there are no singles players to build up a good team in the USA. It is amazing that even a country like USA can face such problems. All this makes Switzerland winning Davis-Cup very special. They must be the smallest and the smartest Tennis country to win the Davis Cup. They too have good players ‘depth issues’. After Federer and Wawrinka, their next best player is nowhere near the top rankings.
The Swiss Tennis Saga
Martina Hingis was the first big name from Switzerland in the modern era which changed the Tennis image of Switzerland. Following Hingis’s footsteps currently is 17 year old Belinda Bencic. She has made ripples in the women’s world rankings. Roger Federer cemented the Swiss identity in the Tennis world. Now ‘Roger and Stan’ confirmed to the world that Tennis is a Swiss sport. Switzerland’s Tennis saga will be proud history by any standard.
-George Paldano, former international player; Accredited Coach of Germany, National, Davis Cup and Federation Cup Coach; ITF and USPTR certified.–gptennis.ceylon@gmail.com-