While many of the top players have headed to Europe to start on the long clay season leading up to the French Open, there’s still some unfinished Davis Cup business going on this week.

The US is considered something of an underdog facing Serbia with number 1, Novak Djokovic, playing singles.  Because Tipsarevic is injured and not playing Davis Cup, the US had a chance to win.  It would involve both Querrey and Isner beating Troicki, then having their top doubles team beat whatever Serbia could put together.

Serbia has top doubles player, Nenad Zimonjic, who has given the Bryan brothers trouble, but he’s often paired with someone not from his country.

But before we get to that, Djokovic did what he was supposed to do, which was beat Isner.  Querrey needed 5 sets to beat Troicki who hasn’t been playing great the last few years, but is still a solid player.

With the split, Americans had to believe that with a doubles win, they could force Isner to face Troicki and hope for a win even with a Querrey loss to Djokovic.  But Zimonjic paired up with Bozoljac.  If you have a good memory, you may recall Federer played Bozoljac at Wimbledon in 2010 in the second round.  That was the year that Federer barely escaped losing to Alejandro Falla in the first round.

Despite hardly any doubles credentials, Bozoljac held up his end of the team well and at times, he was playing better than Zimonjic.  The duo took the first two sets in tiebreaks, but the Bryans were able to break once in each of the third and fourth sets to knot the match at two sets each.  The fifth set, which has no tiebreak, went on for a while until the Serbs got a key break and won the match 15-13 despite saving match point.

This is unusual for the Bryan brothers especially considering this is their second consecutive loss in Davis Cup doubles.  The brothers lost to Brazil in the first round of Davis Cup, a pair that never had huge success, but at least have played as a team for some time.  They even said it was one of their best wins in their careers despite the team losing.

The Canadians didn’t have quite the same task.  Neither of the Italians, Seppi or Fognini, playing singles are anywhere near as good as Djokovic.  Although Frank Dancevic had a huge upset of Granollers back in the opening round against Spain, Canada went with young Vasek Pospisil, whose biggest hero moment was winning 3 matches in the Canadian tie against Israel a few years ago.  That win pushed Canada to the World Group.  Raonic was injured during that tie, and lost his opening round match then didn’t play the remainder of the tie.

Pospisil did a decent job pushing Seppi by winning the first two sets, but ultimately lost in 5 sets.  Raonic did his job and beat Fognini in three sets.  Like Serbia, Canada has to cobble together a doubles team, though it has been fairly steady with elder statesman, Daniel Nestor (who, coincidentally, had played with Zimonjic a few years ago) and young Vasek Pospisil.

The doubles match appeared to go to the Canadians as they won the first two sets (much like the Serbs) but dropped the third and fourth sets, before winning a long fifth set, 15-13, the same set score as in the Serbian-US doubles match.

Canada will now rely on Raonic to beat Seppi, but it’s unclear whether they stick with Pospisil for the other singles match given two five setters (they may go to Dancevic instead).

In other Davis Cup matches, Argentina won doubles against France, and are up 2-1 over France with that win.  The Czech Republic, playing with neither Berdych nor Stepanek, are nonethless up 2-1 though they lost the doubles to Kazakhstan.