Davis Cup 2017: Murray and GB draw Canada away amid debate about stresses and strains

The final of the 2016 Davis Cup between Croatia and Argentina may still be two months away, but thoughts for them and the other nations that make up this tournament’s huge family are already turning to 2017.

The 2017 draw, which took place in London today, determined which seeded nation would meet each of last week’s World Group Play-off winners—Germany, Italy, Australia, Japan, Russia, Spain, the USA, and Canada—next Spring.

This year’s finalists, Argentina and Croatia, will be the top two seeds, while the remaining six seeds are 2015 champion Great Britain and runner-up Belgium, plus the finalists from 2014 and 2013: Switzerland, France, the Czech Republic and Serbia.

However, the draw comes just as the ITF announced the next phase of its strategy for both the Davis Cup and Fed Cup tournaments.

Among the changes being considered is the selection of a neutral ground for the finals of both events, and possible host cities are asked to put in bids from this December.

Also being considered are changes to the match formats, perhaps reducing the best-of-five-set matches played at the moment to best-of-three, and even reducing the three-day event to two days.

For while all the top players have, in recent years, seen adding the Davis Cup title to their list of career achievements as an essential accomplishment, personally and for their nations, the physical demands of fitting the four required weeks into a notoriously packed tennis calendar have, for most, proved too much to sustain year after year.

Roger Federer, who has played more Davis Cup ties than any of his contemporaries, eventually got his reward with Stan Wawrinka for Switzerland in 2014, but he had played nine rubbers in nine months, Wawrinka eight. Now age 35 and 31 respectively, they kept Switzerland in the World Group last autumn but opted out this year.

Novak Djokovic played eight matches in Serbia’s 2010 triumph, in what proved a confidence-boosting launch-pad to his mighty 2011 season of 10 titles and the No1 ranking. And while he helped Serbia to the final again in 2013, his has been a playing schedule that cannot sustain such efforts every season.

Among all these champions—and Rafael Nadal and Tomas Berdych have done it too—Andy Murray has, arguably, laid the most on the line. Unlike Federer, he has not had a Wawrinka, unlike Serbia, he did not have Viktor Troicki or Janko Tipsarevic, or had enjoyed the support of half a dozen others like France and Spain.

In reaching the semi-finals in Glasgow last weekend, Murray had accumulated 29 singles wins for just two losses, plus eight doubles wins—and his 14-match winning streak dated back to the quarter-finals in Italy in 2014.

But while he enjoys the considerable Grand Slam company of brother Jamie in doubles—though Andy has still played almost every doubles rubber as well—it was little wonder that, after winning both Wimbledon and Olympic gold, he missed this summer’s quarter-final tie—his first absence since the World Group Play-offs three years ago. And little wonder that, during his charity event in Glasgow yesterday, he expressed support for the ITF’s review of the tournament.

As reported by BBC Online, he admitted: “The last three days, coming off the back of the Olympics, Cincinnati, the US Open, and then being on court for 10 or 11 hours, was really hard… Maybe playing it over Saturday and Sunday, best of three sets, I like that idea.”

No doubt fellow top players such as Belgium’s David Goffin, who has been similarly energetic in keeping lower-ranked compatriots in the World Group, would concur.

It is not only the challenge of the matches themselves that drain players who may already have gone deep into the Grand Slam or Masters draws in the immediate run-up to ties. Away teams may have to travel to the other side of the globe, even to a different season, to play.

With that in mind, the draw for 2017’s first round was packed with potential problems, falling as it does just days after the Australian Open. And there will be no changes to formats or the calendar next year: the ITF will address the new proposals at its AGM next August.

The GB team seeded No3 in the event, drew Canada away, so it will be quite a journey from the southern to the northern hemisphere and a significant change of conditions for both teams—from hot outdoors to cooler indoors. Their only previous meeting was back in 1967, before the World Group: GB’s win thus means little.

It remains to be seen whether Murray can continue to throw so much into Davis Cup next year when there remain such big ambitions in the coming few seasons, notably his campaign to reach No1 and to win in Australia after losing five finals in the last seven years.

For there are no longer even any ranking points to ease the pain—and in the limited life of the very elite in tennis, that is a factor that has also to be added the scales.

World Group ties 2017

(bold denotes host nation)

Argentina (1) vs Italy
Belgium (7) vs Germany
Czech Republic (4) vs Australia
Switzerland (5) vs USA

France (6) vs Japan
Great Britain (3) vs Canada
Serbia (8) vs Russia
Croatia (2) vs Spain

Dates
Round 1: 3-5 February
Quarters: 7-9 April
Semis and WG Play-offs: 15-17 September
Final: 24-26 November