The Hopman Cup might be a model of how a different Davis Cup might be like. Although this is an exhibition, it tends to draw very good players. This year, were two top ten players in Tomas Berdych and Mardy Fish and also included Richard Gasquet and Fernando Verdasco. One advantage, for many players, is that it’s played in Perth, Australia, so players do not have to travel far to reach the Australian Open (the men, for example, are also currently playing in Doha and Chennai, which is still some distance from Australia)
Each team puts forth one male and one female player who also play mixed doubles. This is an exhibition with 8 invited teams. They are split into two groups of four and play round robin. The winner of each round robin are put in the finals. The format allows each team to play at least three singles matches. The problem with playing a tournament is its single elimination nature where a bad match early might mean only one match of real play.
Sometimes, because of the country, the team can be rather lopsided with one player far stronger than the other. For example, this year, China had Li Na. But they lack a top-ranked male player. Wu Di played, and although he acquitted himself fine, he was not really in contention to win matches. Some teams, in particular the Czech Republic, had a powerhouse team. The Czech Republic featured Wimbledon winner, Petra Kvitova, and top ten player, Tomas Berdych.
The Americans competed as well with Mardy Fish and Bethanie Mattek-Sands. Mattek-Sands is a solid player, but she is ranked around 30 or 40, and many teams were able to field top ten players, so Mattek-Sands was the underdog in pretty much every match. Even Fish had some troubles because of players like Berdych who is ranked just ahead of him and has the kind of power to beat many players.
It’s often the case when people are asked to recall the best matches of the year it involves two factors: the very best players and the Slams. If you ask someone, find me a good match with no top 5 players and not played in a Slam, and they might struggle to remember if they saw any such matches.
One such entertaining match was in the Hopman Cup finals between Berdych and Gasquet. Both are flashy players capable of hitting big shots. Down a double break and a set, Richard Gasquet had the unenviable task of trying to get back two breaks. He pulled off one break after hitting a lot of big shots. In a game that had to be watched to be believed, Berdych blistered several returns and quickly got to 0-40 on Gasquet’s serve. It looked like it would be over except in the next two points, Gasquet went for huge shots as well and hit two more winners. Then, he hit two big serves, before finally netting a shot and ending a streak of about 7 winners in a row. Gasquet finally held serve to 5-4.
He wasn’t able to break again as Berdych took the final game with an ace and swept all his singles matches.
This means Berdych might be a danger player heading into Australia. He’s full of confidence, striking the ball well. With Monfils upsetting Nadal, and Tsonga playing well, there may be a lot of dangerous players heading into Melbourne.
