The French tennis team receives Ecuador in the Davis Cup play-off on Friday and Saturday in Pau.
This match played over two days for the best of four singles and doubles is close to the historic formula of this competition.
A joy for the players but also the supporters who will be back to create a real Davis Cup atmosphere like in the good old days.
It's a fragrance that tennis lovers will enjoy smelling on Friday and Saturday at the Palais des Sports in Pau.
That of nostalgia.
That of the return of the "real" Davis Cup for 48 hours!
No one will blame Sébastien Grosjean if for a few minutes on his bench as captain of the France team he sees himself more than 20 years back against Gustavo Kuerten in this same room delivering an epic duel to the Brazilian (defeat in the 5th, 9-7) for his first match in this competition at only 21 years old.
It was a good time !
But since Gérard Piqué and his company Kosmos have been there with a nice check for three billion euros.
Result of the races, bye-bye the atmosphere of fire and the matches in five sets with knives between two nations.
Since 2019, there has been a kind of “World Cup” where you need bac +12 to understand how it works.
To the point that the organizers have three different formulas in three years.
This is to say the success of this new version.
Short !
In this ambient slump, we will therefore appreciate this little bit of sunshine offered to us by its play-offs of the 2022 edition which will “resemble a real Davis Cup meeting” according to Grosjean.
A meeting over two days with possibly four singles and a double
So yes "there won't be the three days [of competition] and the matches in five sets" as the French captain reminds us, but it's already better than these meetings over a few hours for the best of two singles and a double in front three peeled and a shorn that we will know again in September during the group stage then the final phase in Abu Dhabi, a great land of tennis as everyone knows.
In Pau, "[French] stronghold of the Davis Cup" for Sébastien Grosjean, we could have the right to four singles and a double (in the third match) over two days to decide between France and Ecuador.
🇫🇷⚡️🇪🇨
𝗟𝗘 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗠𝗠𝗘 🚨@DavisCup #DavisCup pic.twitter.com/6FxBlV34Un
— FFT (@FFTennis) March 3, 2022
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“It's a perfume from the old format,” revels the former Nicolas Mahut, one of the most ardent opponents of the new formula.
Whoever experienced the elimination in anonymity in 2019 in Madrid and that behind closed doors in Innsbruck (Covid-19 requires) last year, both times in the group stage, knows what he is talking about.
“It's good that young people can also discover what the Davis Cup is really about,” he insists.
Among them, the weekend rookie, Benjamin Bonzi:
“I grew up watching Davis Cup matches on TV.
When I was at the France pole, we met with the other young people to watch the matches.
I inevitably also remember the incredible images of the 2017 final (won against Belgium 3-2).
That's why, for me, it's special and a real honor.
»
The public back like in the good old days
In Pau, the current 67th world recent semi-finalist of the ATP 250 tournament in Marseille will be the fifth man of this team of France.
Blues who will be able to rely on Adrian Mannarino and Arthur Rinderknech in singles this Friday and on the pair Mahut-Herbert, five-time Grand Slam winner, on Saturday.
But especially on a public finally back to get even closer to a real Davis Cup atmosphere: "We are delighted to be able to share a meeting with our public, at home, to experience this reunion with the atmosphere that we have always known in this competition, with an audience that has always responded present”, admits the French captain.
Arthur Rinderknech, impatient to discover this, “hopes that the public will do their job because it will make a beautiful and big difference.
We're going to give it our all and have fun."
In this configuration, he should quickly (re) come because "it's getting closer" to what Sébastien Grosjean experienced during his playing career.
A captain who does not hide and insists on the fact of “trying to do the maximum today to find the true formula which had made the magic of this competition.
“Not sure that friend Gérard does not hear it that way…
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Aquitaine
Paul
Nicolas mahut
Adrian Mannarino
Davis Cup
Ecuador
Sport
Tennis
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