The German Davis Cup team will meet Australia in an away game at the beginning of February.
Down-Under Weeks in German tennis: The Davis Cup team will play away against this year’s semi-finalist Australia in the first round of the 2018 World Group and will be able to stay on site after the Australian Open.This was the result of the draw on Wednesday in London.The opening round will be held from 2.till 4.A few days after the end of the Melbourne Grand Slam tournament.
The winners enter the quarter-finals, the losers fight against relegation against relegation.The 28-time champion Australia was last with Nick Kyrgios, number 20 in the world, as top player.
“This is a hard fate for us, Australia is always difficult away from home.Nick Kyrgios is one of the most talented players on the Tour.At least the game will take place immediately after the Australian Open, which makes it a bit easier to plan,”said Michael Kohlmann’s initial reaction.
The Fed Cup team has caught a hard one.At the debut of the new captain Jens Gerlach, the team of former world number one Angelique Kerber (Kiel) will have to play on 10/11.In February, Belarus will contest this year’s finalist in the final with top player Viktoria Azarenka.In November, the Belarusian women still have a chance of winning their first Fed Cup win against the USA.The selection of the German Tennis Association (DTB), two-time winner of the competition, had lost 4-0 in the first round of this year in the USA and won the class in the play-off 3-2 against Ukraine.
The other first-round matches in the Davis Cup will be played by Serbia against the USA, Italy against Japan, France against the Netherlands, Spain against Great Britain, Kazakhstan against Switzerland, Croatia against Canada and Belgium against Hungary.
nearby
In the current season, France and Belgium from 24.till 26.After the final in Lille on 11 November, the German Tennis Federation (DTB) team had lost their opening match in Frankfurt 1:4 against the Belgians in spite of a top team with youngster Alexander Zverev and seasoned player Philipp Kohlschreiber in Frankfurt.By a 3:2 in the play-off in Portugal last weekend, a German fuselage crew without top players prevented the third descent after 1982 and 2003.
The face of the German Davis Cup team in the coming year is completely open.The expiring contract of captain Michael Kohlmann will probably be extended, but it is not certain whether Kohlmann and chief consultant Boris Becker can rely on Alexander Zverev and his brother Mischa (both from Hamburg).
Like experienced Philipp Kohlschreiber (Augsburg), the Zverevs had decided not to take part in the relegation fight against Portugal shortly after the US Open.Alexander Zverev, who was generally not averse to the Davis Cup, had decided against an operation at the instigation of his surroundings and decided to take a break, and Mischa Zverev would probably have only been an option for doubles anyway – in contrast to Kohlschreiber, whose renunciation had met with incomprehension on the part of Becker.
The German B squad had presented themselves solidly in Portugal, but they did not necessarily recommend themselves for higher tasks against second-class opponents.Jan-Lennard Struff (Warstein), who had won the decisive third point by beating Joao Sousa in five sets, and Cedric-Marcel Stebe (Vaihingen/Enz), who had also defeated Sousa before, would once again be emergencies.
The Draw of the World Group at a glance