About this time of year, or sometimes just after the US Open, you get tennis pundits, in particular, American tennis pundits who have solutions to what ails tennis.  Davis Cup, invariably, gets a makeover.  The key criticism of Davis Cup is that it’s played over four distinct times, often the week after a Slam.  The first one is held just after the Australian Open.  The second, just after Wimbledon.  The third, just after the US Open.  The finals (it’s 16 teams in the World Group) after the year-end championship (at least it’s not as bad as the women’s tour which continues to hold events after their year-end championship).

There’s been criticism that the top players don’t play Davis Cup.  Federer has routinely skipped Davis Cup, often concerned about change of surfaces affecting his health (many find the transition, say, from clay to hard courts or back rather jarring).  At least Federer has a sidekick that is reasonably good (Stan Wawrinka).  Andy Murray has even less reason to participate since no one can name the British number 2 (is it James Ward, or hmm?).  The British invasion may come soon with a bunch of juniors that recently contended for many junior Slams, but right now, there’s no one in particular.  Andy and his brother Jamie aren’t the Bryan brothers.  Together, they’re still not guaranteed a win in the doubles.

By contrast, Rafael Nadal often does play Davis Cup.  However, Spain is so loaded with good players that they can field 3 Davis Cup teams and their third best might still do well against half the teams at the world level.  They include players like David Ferrer, Fernando Verdasco, Feliciano Lopez, Nicolas Almagro, Marcel Granollers.  That’s just scratching the surface.  They could get Guillermo Garcia-Lopez or Daniel Gimeno-Traver.  OK, that’s not top-flight players, but still top 100-ish.

France is about the only other country that is similarly loaded though they lack the player at the very top like Nadal.

Pundits would do away with the four ties (as these matches are called) and host one big uber tournament held in one location, a la the World Cup in soccer (or football).   And like the World Cup, it would be held once in four years to make things special.  But, reality is, that the Slams still hold more sway than Davis Cup, and that small countries take pride in achievements like making the World Group.  Of course, pundits don’t care.  They’re used to a certain amount of success.  They want to see the best of the best.  Those tiny countries?  Who cares, they think.

And pundits would also get rid of the year-end championship, or, for that matter, any tournament after the US Open.  Wouldn’t want to interrupt football season, after all.  (American football).

It’s such an American-centric view of the world, which is funny, because sports commentators rarely talk about tennis.  One can be happy that the (American) ESPN show, Mike and Mike in the morning, 2-3 hours of sports commentary, even talk about tennis, and they do so only briefly.  “Is Roger Federer the best athlete of all times?  Let’s talk Jackie Robinson!”.  Did neither of you watch the match?  No commentary on it?  Of course, you didn’t.  Team sports offer so much more fodder for the sports cognoscenti.  Just recently, they devoted half an hour discussing whether they should have tried harder to get Phil Jackson to be the Lakers’ coach for like the third time.

With team dynamics, you can ask whether a player should be on a team or not, or whether a player should be traded or not, or whether the coaches made a correct decision or not.  There’s less discussion in individual sports like tennis, or even doubles which is technically a team.

This year’s Davis Cup pits the Czech Republic against Spain.  Spain has routinely reached the finals except in 2010 when Spain was upset by France on an indoor surface without Nadal playing.  The Czechs have two good players: top ten player, Tomas Berdych, and Radek Stepanek.  The two will also have to play doubles since the Czechs lack a good alternate doubles team.

Spain, without Rafael Nadal, will feature world number 5, David Ferrer (who is close to being number 4 given Nadal’s absence).  Ferrer plays equally well on hard courts as on clay and has won the most tournaments this year (7).  In head-to-head, Ferrer leads, but most of the matches they’ve played were played in 2007 or earlier when neither player was at their best, and many of those encounters were on clay.  Berdych will have to win both his singles if they are to have a strong chance of winning.  The only benefit for Stepanek is that he plays a lot at net, so his style might be quirky enough to beat Almagro.

Almagro is playing number 2, partly because he’s had the best results after Ferrer.  Almagro is a much better clay court player than hard court player which is strange since Almagro hits so hard.  It may be that he struggles on return of serve, and the clay gives him more time.

For once, Spain has a legitimate doubles team.  Historically, they’ve used Verdasco and Lopez, mostly because those two are proficient singles players.  Davis Cup limits the number of players to 4 total, so if a team has doubles specialists (like the US), then the singles teams better stay healthy.  Often, a country will opt for their lead singles players to play doubles as well which frees up an alternate, if need be.  However, Verdasco and Lopez have been a so-so doubles team losing as often as they win.  This time around, they’ll have the World Tour Finals champion, Granollers and Lopez, although it’s Marc Lopez, not Feliciano.  Granollers is reasonably accomplished as a singles player, so he can play if need be.

In the match-ups, Berdych should be strongly favored against Almagro.  They’ve actually played 5 times this year with Almagro winning one encounter back in Indian Wells.  Almagro will probably be favored over Stepanek.  They’ve played three times, but once this year, which Almagro won.  Not surprisingly, Ferrer leads Stepanek lifetime, 6-3.  The two have played each other close (5-setters in Slams and Davis Cup), but the last two times they met, Ferrer won in straight sets.  Although Ferrer also leads Berdych in head-to-head, they’ve played only twice in the last two years, splitting their meetings.  On a fast court, Berdych might be lightly favored.  Both have played well recently, so it’s hard to say.  Ferrer recently beat del Potro, and Berdych is somewhat in the mold.  The doubles probably favors the Spaniards, but the Czechs have only lost once with Berdych-Stepanek.  Stepanek also played in the World Tour Finals, so his doubles skills should be in good shape.

Ferrer was planning to sit out this year, but apparently, with Corretja as captain, he wanted to play Davis Cup.  He’s been a bull lately, seemingly impervious to playing lots of matches.  He won Valencia, won 2 of 3 round robin matches, and is expected to be Spain’s main player.  Spain should be favored, but with the event held in the Czech Republic, they have a good shot at the upset.