GB drawn with Kazakhstan & Netherlands in Davis Cup finals

Posted: Feb 14, 2019

Great Britain will play Kazakhstan and the Netherlands at the Davis Cup finals in Madrid in November.

Wildcards Britain, who won the event in 2015, are seeded fifth and have been drawn in Group E.

Defending champions Croatia are in Group B alongside hosts Spain, while the United States – who have won the title on 32 occasions – are in Group F.

It will be the first Davis Cup finals played in the new week-long 18-nation World Cup-style format.

The event will take place between 18-24 November with matches consisting of two singles and one doubles rubber.

The six group winners, plus the best two second-placed teams – based on sets, games and points won – will qualify for the knockout phase.

If Britain win Group E, they will face the winners of Group C, which features Argentina, Germany, Chile.

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The Davis Cup, which was founded in 1900, is one of the world’s largest international team competitions with 132 nations taking part in 2018.

Sixteen nations previously competed in the World Group in a straight knockout, with one of the nations hosting the tie.

An increasing number of top players have skipped matches in recent years to ease their schedule.

The 25-year, £2.15bn revamp of the Davis Cup is funded by an investment group led by footballer Gerard Pique.

Analysis

Russell Fuller, BBC tennis correspondent

Britain are by no means the strongest team in the competition, but this draw is about as good as it could have possibly been.

Mikhail Kukushkin is Kazakhstan’s only top 100 player, and Robin Haase – at 55 in the world rankings – is the only Dutch player inside the top 200.

The rest of the draw has thrown up the possibility of some mouth-watering matches. Juan Martin del Potro and Alexander Zverev could, in theory, meet in the group stages.

But Zverev is adamant he will not play in November, as it is too late in the year. The fear for the organisers is that other top players follow his lead.