Most of the times, Davis Cup captains don’t have much work to do.  Most of the work is convincing the top players to play, and then you play them.  Rarely does a team have options that it might ponder.

For example, if Switzerland could ever convince Roger Federer to play for Davis Cup again, he’d surely play both singles (assuming the tie was alive).  The same could be said of Andy Murray.  A country like Spain has some luxury to play many players given how many top Spaniards there are.

France and Serbia seemed to have obvious choices for their singles team.  With ever injured Jo-Wilfried Tsonga still injured, Gael Monfils, the highest ranked Frenchman, was the obvious choice.  Had Tsonga been healthy and playing, the French team would have been formidable indeed, even playing guest in Belgrade.

The other obvious choice, so one imagined, was Michael Llodra.  Llodra had one of his best performances ever just a few weeks ago at the Paris Masters where he reached the semifinals, upsetting Novak Djokovic along the way.  Surely, they would pick him to see if he could pull the feat off a second time.

Similarly, the Serbian coach had to pick Novak Djokovic, assuming he was healthy, and then it seemed obvious to pick Victor Troicki.  Troicki recently won a tournament and came oh-so-close to upsetting Rafael Nadal in the semifinals of Tokyo.  Surely, they would pick Troicki.

So it came as a surprise that Serbia went with Janko Tipsarevic, best known for pushing Roger Federer to 5 sets at the Australian Open some years ago, but has not seen his fortunes rise.  Tipsarevic is a solid player and he may become more refined as he gets older, maybe someone like Arnaud Clement (who frankly, has had a more solid career than Tipsarevic).

France similarly picked Gilles Simon.  Two years ago, Simon would have been the obvious choice.  He had managed to get into the ATP World Tour Finals when Nadal’s injury forced him to skip the year-end event and he managed to upset Roger Federer in round-robin play.  But 2009 proved disappointing.  Although he won a tournament, he failed to go deep in many tournaments.  Simon didn’t start of 2010 much better, but he was playing somewhat better tennis in the second half of the year.

Even so, Simon seemed like an odd choice.  The French, it seemed, hoped that Simon’s steady play might wear Djokovic down.  Except it never came to that.  Djokovic dispatched Simon in straight sets.  Meanwhile, Monfils had only one tough set against Tipsarevic, but likewise, won that match in straight sets.

One reason France may have opted to play Simon is Llodra’s double duty in doubles.  Llodra might have pushed Djokovic to several sets, then have to come back to play doubles, and then reverse singles.  Had he lost to Djokovic (a strong likelihood despite losing to Llodra in Paris a few weeks ago), Llodra might have worn down.

And Serbia was also taking a chance. Captain Bogdan Obradovic picked Troicki to play doubles.  Perhaps for similar reasons, he chose not to play Troicki on Day 1 in case he needed him to be fresh on Day 3.

This moved nearly worked.  While Serbia has one of the best doubles players in the world in Nenad Zimonjic, it’s not true that you can simply pair Zimonjic with anyone, and they will win.  Serbia has lost the doubles round several times even with Djokovic trying his hand at doubles.  This time, they went with Troicki, and pushed France to a fifth set.  Serbia was up 2 sets to 1 against a veteran team of Clement and Llodra who have played doubles for around a decade.

When France pulled out the doubles, they must have hoped that they could take one of the other reverse singles.

But there was a problem.  As talented as Gael Monfils is, he’s never beaten Novak Djokovic, and they’ve played 5 times.  With Djokovic playing good tennis, even Monfils, who reached the finals of Paris a few weeks ago (and promised to bring back the Davis Cup in a post-match speech) could not make a dent in the Serbian’s game.  Monfils went down tamely, 6-2, 6-2, 6-4.

At this point, both Davis Cup captains went back to their #2 guys.  Serbia brought out Victor Troicki and France brought out Michael Llodra.

It turned out this wasn’t even close.  Troicki must have practiced against every serve and volleyer he could find the last few weeks.  Whatever he did, Troicki had answers for Llodra, and Llodra had no answers for Troicki.  Final score: 6-2, 6-2, 6-3.

With Serbia celebrating, the entire team had their heads shaved (see the pic above) and were able to bring the Davis Cup to the home crowd.

So as American tennis writers lament how boring they think Davis Cup is (because the top players won’t play), try to explain it to France (who has won this many times before) and Serbia (who had never won it) and ask either team if they thought the Davis Cup was boring.   Serbia had about the most negative press a country gets back in the 1990s when they were accused of genocide.  The success of Djokovic and several of his countrymen and women has brought positive news of Serbia to the world and this title means more to Serbia than almost any other country.

France might be the one other country, in its own way, to value the title as much.  They’ve yet to produce a top-flight player capable of being in the top 4.  But they have a strong enough team to win Davis Cup.  And it may be that Djokovic, of all the top players, might be the one most dedicated to playing Davis Cup.  Spain has a strong team without Nadal and Nadal has to worry about a place in history.  Djokovic might want to be remembered for Slams, but a Davis Cup title will do nicely.

So congratulations to Serbia for its first title!

And now the tennis watching public can rest a few weeks before the first tournament starts at the start of the new year.