Germany wants to enter the final round

On Friday and Saturday, the German Davis Cup team will qualify for the final round against Belarus. Alexander Zverev is missing, however.

At the Castello in Düsseldorf, the German Davis Cup team wants to clear the only obstacle before they can participate again in the final week in Madrid in November.

On Friday and Saturday, the German tennis team will compete against Belarus.

The winner of the duel automatically qualifies for the final week of the newly created competition. Jan-Lennard Struff will lead the German team. The 29-year-old is, so to speak, Alexander Zverev’s replacement, whose cancellation was known for a while.

“It will not be an easy match. Germany is favoured, but Belarus is a team that is very, very, strong,” says three-time Davis Cup winner Patrick Kühnen in an exclusive interview, assessing the Germans’ chances. The 53-year-old continues: “The Davis Cup has its own laws. Every German player who plays there must also be in top form in order to really win the points for Germany here”.

Kohlmann: Zverev’s refusal came as no surprise
Zverev’s cancellation came as no surprise to Davis Cup team boss Michael Kohlmann. “We talked about it a lot. It was clear that the chances of him playing the tournaments in Acapulco and Indian Wells were very low,” he explained.

Whether Zverev will be available for the final round in November is also still open. “First we have to qualify,” Kohlmann continued.

Six teams already qualified
In Düsseldorf, where Germany last won the Davis Cup in 1993, the team will consist of Jan-Lennard Struff (Warstein), Philipp Kohlschreiber (Augsburg), Dominik Koepfer (Furtwangen) and the doubles Kevin Krawietz/Andreas Mies (Coburg/Cologne).

In the 2019 reformed competition, Russia, Great Britain, Spain, Canada, France and Serbia are already six of the 18 participants for the final round.