The contrasts could hardly be more stark.

Last Sunday, thousands upon thousands of spectators celebrated a tennis party in the multi-functional arena in Turin, with the ATP finals winner Alexander Zverev standing in the middle, beaming in the confetti rain.

Now, a few days later in the Innsbruck Olympic Hall, the German tennis men are experiencing the sad side of the pandemic again.

Not only will the national team play their two Davis Cup group games against Serbia this Saturday and Austria the next day (4 p.m. on ServusTV) without their natural number one, but also without any spectators in the stands.

Thomas Klemm

Sports editor.

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The absence of Zverev had long been clarified. Like Boris Becker (“insane”), the Hamburger does not like to make friends with the new Davis Cup format. Instead of adding at least one tournament week at the end of an eleven-month season, he prefers to be on vacation. The colleagues were prepared for Zverev's absence, but not for ghost games. Austria has been in lockdown again since the beginning of the week, the incidence in Innsbruck and around it is over 1000, so tennis fans have to stay at home. The game is played behind closed doors. Welcome back to the state of emergency.

"We have to accept it like that", said the German Davis Cup team boss Michael Kohlmann and at the same time thought: the audience "would have been the cream on the cake".

Or, from the perspective of the host Austrians, the apricot jam in the Sachertorte.

"It's pretty tough for us, especially against the Germans," said Stefan Koubek, captain of Team Austria, who like Kohlmann has to do without his top player, the convalescent Dominic Thiem.

Five times the neighboring countries have raked each other in the Davis Cup, in a wonderfully hot atmosphere like Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 2009, remembers Koubek, who was still playing at the time.

In the empty hall in Innsbruck, on the other hand, the rivalry is unintentionally quiet.

"The aim is to beat Djokovic"

To the misfortune of the high incidence in Innsbruck, both teams had bad luck in the draw.

Third group member is Serbia, which has to be counted among the tournament favorites because of its top talent Novak Djokovic.

Unlike in the past, only two singles and one doubles are played.

And only the first in the group will make it through to the quarter-finals, plus the two best runners-up from the six groups.

Because it is part of the job-related requirement of a team boss to spread optimism and trust his men to do great things, Kohlmann considers surprises for his players to be possible.

“It is our aim to beat a Novak Djokovic as well.” In reality, Alexander Zverev last achieved this in the semifinals of the ATP Finals.

Although Kohlmann is still keeping a secret from his line-up, there is much to suggest that Jan-Lennard Struff will be dealing with the 20-time Grand Slam tournament winner Djokovic on this Saturday.

Dominik Koepfer or Peter Gojowczyk will probably contest the second individual, Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz as a doubles pair are seeded.

Top talent Struff gets advice from Zverev

If the Davis Cup is stoppage time for most of the touring circus, it will be a kind of restart for Struff. The Warsteiner had already put his bat aside after the long season and only grabbed it with zeal in the past few days. Struff prepared himself not only in training, but also on the phone. He spoke to Zverev during the week and asked for tips. Struff did not want to reveal what his colleague had given him from the Maldives. Just this: "It sounded good."

In six meetings with Djokovic, the German has only won one set, most recently losing at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. “The Davis Cup with Germany will hopefully be a different match,” says the 31-year-old, who is exactly 50 places lower in the world rankings than the industry leader from Serbia. Djokovic warned: "Even if the best players from Germany and Austria are missing, we will not underestimate the teams." The Serb will miss his compatriots in the stands, because the "large community in Austria could have made a big difference".

While nothing is going on in Innsbruck, there will be a great atmosphere in the other two venues of the Davis Cup tournament, which this time is geographically three-part.

In both Turin and Madrid, the doors are open to spectators.

The virus is not left out either.

The young Spanish star Carlos Alcaraz has become infected and is in quarantine.

Others are still waiting for their test result.