Paris (AFP)
World number one and two Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev will compete for one last time this season, when they take on Serbia and Russia, respectively, in the Davis Cup for the tennis teams, which begins on Thursday, in order to conclude a wonderful season.
The two players will be the most prominent names participating in the tournament, which will be missing many of the big faces, in particular Rafael Nadal, whose injury will prevent him from helping Spain maintain the title they won in 2019 before the 2020 edition was canceled due to the repercussions of the Corona virus pandemic.
Ten of the top 15 ranked players will miss the tournament.
And the German Alexander Zverev, ranked third in the world, who won the ATP Finals last week, announced his absence from the tournament.
The Italian, Matteo Berrettini, seventh due to injury, is also absent from Canadians Felix Auger-Aliassime (11) due to injury and Denis Shapovalov (14) for rest, in addition to Austrian Dominic Thiem (15), who has not recovered from his injury, while the reason for the absence of Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas is ( 4) Norway’s Kasper Ruud (8), Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz (9) and Argentina’s Diego Schwarzman (13) to not qualify for their country’s teams.
The 18 teams are divided into six groups of three teams.
Serbia won the title once in its history in 2010, led by Djokovic, crowned this season with three major titles, while Russia won it twice in the absence of Medvedev.
The Russian team will be among the most prominent candidates to win the title for the third time after 2002 and 2006, with Medvedev, the final runner-up and the holder of the US Open title, Andrey Rublev (fifth), Aslan Karatsev (18) and Karen Khachanov (29).
Even without Berrettini, Italy appears to be in a good position, with a mixture of youth and experience with Yannick Sener, 10th in the world (20 years), Lorenzo Mosetti (19 years), as well as Fabio Fognini and Lorenzo Sonego.
The finals will be held from November 25 to December 5, with matches distributed between three cities, the Spanish capital, Madrid, Austrian Innsbruck (behind closed doors after imposing a comprehensive closure this week due to the pandemic), and Turin, Italy.
The three cities will host two groups out of six competitions, while Madrid will receive two quarter-final matches against one each for Turin and Innsbruck, and the semi-final and final rounds will be hosted by the Spanish capital.
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