Team Australia announces line up for 2011 Davis Cup playoffs – Tennis News
The Davis World Group play offs initiate from the 16th to 18th of September at the Royal Sydney Golf Club, Sydney, Australia. The home team will be clashing against Switzerland for a place in the Davis Cup
World Group. Playing host to the Swiss Team, Squad Australia has won all four previous ties played between them, with the most recent clash dating back to 2006.
Aussie captain and tennis legend Patrick Rafter announced the team members that will include the likes of former world number one Lleyton Hewitt; Bernard Tomic, the highest ranked Australian male tennis player, Chris Guccione and
lastly the Croatian born Australian Tennis player Marinko Matosevic. While Hewitt, a lost relic, is a two time Grand Slam winner winning the 2001 US Open and the 2002 Wimbledon Championships, Tomic is the Aussie in the spotlight these days. The only Aussie
to be ranked inside the top 100 currently, he rose to fame in June when he made it into the quarterfinal of the 2011 Wimbledon Championships after upsetting seeded Robin Soderling.
Although not without its stars, the Aussie are a tad bit short next to the Swiss team. Swiss captain Severin Luthi announced a full mighty team that sees sixteen times Grand Slam champion Roger Federer alongside, Stanislas Wawrinka,
Stephane Bohli and Marco Chiudinelli.
The most excited and talked about rubber of the tie will be between Australian Hewitt and the Swiss Maestro (Federer). Although, Federer leads in their head-to-head, the two had previously contested last year in Germany where
Hewitt won the match bouncing back from a set down to secure a 3-6 7-6(4) 6-4 win.
The last tie played by the Australian team was against China in Beijing and in spite of an early round upset, Australian team managed to beat China on their home soil 3-1. Although the Chinese team put a good fight and took the
first point of the tie, young star Tomic came to the rescue and won the second rubber for Australia. Tomic not only saved the day but paved the way for Lleyton and Guccione in the doubles and also for Hewitt in the fourth singles rubber.
Second to the Americans on the all time list of the Davis Cup Champion, the Australian team has won the Davis Cup titles 28 times. Although, from 1905 till 1922 Aussie players represented Australia, they were a combined Australian-New
Zealand team. Their most notable win was in 1939 while facing USA; they produced a comeback from 0-2 down in a final show down.
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