Jannik Sinner and Matteo Berrettini won doubles together at the Davis Cup (Image: Getty)
and Matteo Berrettini rubbed salt in team USA’s wounds after teaming up in doubles to help Italy advance at the Davis Cup.
The Italian team swapped out experienced partners Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori for the singles players and it paid off – they beat Argentina to advance to the semi-finals.
But the same couldn’t be said for the Americans after their captain’s controversial Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram for two singles players.
The USA faced Australia in a quarter-final tie on Thursday morning, which went down to a decisive doubles contest after they split the singles matches. It was set to be a tough match with both nations nominating top doubles specialists.
The USA had Krajicek and Ram while Australia put up Matthew Ebden and Jordan Thompson, who both recently competed at the ATP Finals in doubles with their respective partners.
But, moments before taking to the court, America’s captain Bob Bryan – himself regarded as one of the greatest doubles players in history – decided to switch things up, replacing Krajicek and Ram with Shelton and Tommy Paul, two top-20 singles players.
The risk didn’t pay off and the Aussies won 6-4 6-4. Bryan’s decision caused controversy, with plenty of fans and tennis pundits taking to social media to share their disbelief at his decision.
Retired former doubles No. 1 Rennae Stubbs tweeted: “Doubles specialists that are major champions, more then not, will beat great singles players that haven’t played together before.”
Team USA captain Bob Bryan said he picked Paul and Shelton to surprise their Aussie doubles rivals (Image: Getty)
Just in
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. Read our
It also wasn’t the first time a USA Davis Cup captain chose not to play their doubles specialists in favour of singles players. Mardy Fish did the same two years ago and it sparked backlash. He eventually stepped down.
Bryan defended his decision on Thursday, admitting he had no regrets. “In this case it was a last-minute decision and I don’t regret it. I was hoping to take the Australians by surprise,” he said.
“Between matches we have 15 minutes to talk about the matches, and that’s when I made the decision. I was up against Jordan Thompson, US Open champion and finalist, an accomplished doubles player.
“I was also up against Matthew Ebden, who won the Olympics. Both of them have seen Krajicek/Ram play many times in recent years, but not so much Ben and Tommy. It was a tactical question to take them by surprise, we tried until the end, but they were tougher.”
The surprise tactic didn’t go as planned as Australia’s leader Lleyton Hewitt said: “To be honest, we weren’t really surprised. I had seen them training together and doing exercises during the week, so it wasn’t as much of a surprise as they expected.”
But team Italy, the defending champions, proved that singles players could step up and replace specialist pairs in the decisive rubber on Thursday evening.
Singles world No. 1 Sinner teamed up with former finalist Berrettini to beat Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni of Argentina – a former top-10 pair that have won multiple titles together on the tour.
They replaced Bolelli and Vavassori who played together all year, reaching two Major finals and competing at the season-ending championships in Turin. But the Italian doubles team were happy to let Sinner and Berrettini take their place and had been briefed of the change in advance.
After getting the win, Berrettini said: “We have one of the strongest teams in doubles, Boelli and Vavassori, who have played amazing this year.
“So they have helped us a lot before the match. We spoke with them this morning and they told me how to play if I was playing because they know the opposing team very well. That is special.”