The Spanish team, on paper, was going to be a tough out.  It’s hard to beat Nadal on clay and David Ferrer is no cup of tea.  If France could ever field its best team, which would be Monfils and Tsonga, they might have a good shot.  Both Monfils and Tsonga have a decent chance of beating Ferrer, and either has a longshot chance of beating Nadal, but outside of Djokovic, they have as good a shot as anyone, especially, Tsonga.

But, in doubles, the French have a decided advantage.  The French have always had players that could play doubles.  The Spaniards, not so much.  The French have liked the net, the Spaniards, not so much.

Captain Guy Forget took a chance.  He decided not to play France’s strongest player, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, in singles on Day 1.  Instead, he asked him to play doubles with Llodra.  Tsonga doesn’t play a lot of doubles but he has a huge first serve and a huge forehand.  That combined with Llodra’s considerable doubles skills was more than a match for the go-to doubles team for Spain: Verdasco and Lopez.

The strategy was often to go after the net man, in particular, Fernando Verdasco whose confidence issues have been a problem especially this year.  Verdasco apparently has issues with passing shots when the receiving team targets him, and the French took full advantage of this.

The win was a lopsided 6-1, 6-2, 6-0.

The French now have a huge problem.  The Spaniards only needs one more win, and the best chance for France, which is a slim one, is to use Tsonga to beat Nadal.  That would be a tough task in itself, but even if Tsonga beat Nadal, it’s beating Ferrer that’s a huge issue.  Ferrer has a winning record over the rest of the French team.  The one player that gives Ferrer fits is Monfils and he wasn’t named to the French team presumably due to injury.

Gasquet and Llodra are the two possibilities against Ferrer, and neither have fared well.  Llodra at least has a different style, but this is clay.  Gasquet played awful against Nadal, but then Nadal makes most everyone look bad on clay.

The Swiss are in a bit of a bind.  They are in a relegation match against Australia.  The Australians picked grass because Wawrinka is weak on grass. Although Federer-Wawrinka won the Olympic gold, the two generally don’t play doubles mostly because Federer rarely plays doubles.  When he does, he might pair with buddy, Marco Chiudinelli, rather than Wawrinka, or possibly Yves Allegro.  Hewitt also doesn’t play a ton of doubles especially with Chris Guccione.  Although Fed-Wawrinka won the first set easily, they proceeded to lose the next 3 sets.

Fed would be expected to beat Tomic, but that would leave Wawrinka trying to beat Hewitt who understands grass.  Had it been hardcourts, or especially clay, Wawrinka would be favored.  So it looks like this tie may go to the Aussies.

The Serbians found themselves in the same bind as France, down 2-0.  Djokovic, if healthy, would have probably guaranteed the 1-all split.  The Serbs best chance is to have Djokovic sub in for Troicki and play del Potro, a match he would be favored to win, and then hope that Tipsarevic could somehow beat Nalbandian who really wants Argentina to win a Davis Cup and has often sacrificed success in singles to try to accomplish this task.

The Serbians decided to field the team of Zimonjic, an experienced doubles player, and Troicki.  Coincidentally enough, Zimonjic’s doubles partner is currently Michael Llodra who did the doubles duty for France.

The Argentines fielded Juan Ignacio Chela and Juan Monaco, presumably because both can play singles.  This is one of the gotchas in Davis Cup.  You can only name 4 players to a team.  If you get a doubles specialist team like the Bryan brothers, you have no substitutions you can make. Thus, instead of picking a superior doubles team, a country often picks one doubles specialist and teams them up with a good singles player and hope the combination works.

Of course, some countries, in particular, the Bahamas, Serbia, and Canada, only have one excellent doubles player and thus have no choice.  The Argentines actually have a decent doubles team in Schwank and Zeballos, but their singles skills aren’t nearly as good.  Chela has played enough doubles that it makes sense to use him.

The Serbs have taken the first two sets and are up a break in the third set.  Djokovic would play del Potro in the first match on Sunday and would be expected to win if he’s recovered (he’ll have had 6 days to recover).  Then, it would come down to Tipsarevic and Nalbandian if it went all the way.

UPDATE: Serbia wins the doubles, 7-6, 6-4, 6-2, and trails 1-2 to Argentina.