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  • First Round Davis Cup Preview: France vs. Romania

    2/7/08 1:47 PM | Ricky Dimon
    - Just two weeks after his stunning run to the Australian Open final, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is back in action as he hopes to continue taking the tennis world by storm. This time, however, instead of playing for himself, he'll be playing for his country.

    Led by Tsonga and Richard Gasquet, the high-powered French squad takes on Romania this weekend in a first-round Davis Cup tie.

    France and Romania will square off in a first-round Davis Cup tie from Friday through Sunday in Sibiu, Romania. The tie will take place indoors on hard courts. As hosts, Romania did not and does not have any obvious surface choice with which to exploit the favored Frenchmen, so the decision of hard courts does not come as much of a surprise. Grass would have played into the hands of big-serving Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and also Richard Gasquet, who upset Andy Roddick at Wimbledon last year en route to a semifinal appearance at the All-England Club. Clay is not ideal for any of the Romanians and Gasquet would be heavily favored in both his singles matches on the red stuff.

    The surface should be the least of Romania’s concerns this week. Instead, they need to focus purely on the opponent, because France looks like one of the strongest contenders to win the 2008 Davis Cup. Tsonga and Gasquet have both been in extremely good form since the fall of 2007 and there’s no reason to think that won’t continue.

    Playing singles for the Romanian team are veteran Andrei Pavel and journeyman Victor Hanescu. At 34-years-old, Pavel is on the downside of his career and ranked 83rd in the world. The 6’6’’ Hanescu is 76th in the world and he enjoyed some strong results in Challenger Series events in the second half of the 2007 season. He lost in the first round of Adelaide earlier in 2008 to none other than Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Encouragingly, Hanescu extended Tsonga to 7-5 in the third. Both of these Romanians are capable of pulling off an upset, but pulling off the necessary two—or most likely three if they lose the doubles point--wins in singles seems too difficult to ask of them.

    Little-known Florin Mergea and Horia Tecau round out the Romanian squad and could factor into the doubles equation on Saturday, although that remains to be seen. Either way, the Romanians will be severely overmatched in doubles going up against the French duo of Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra. Just two weeks ago Clement and Llodra made it all the way to the final of the Australian Open. Assuming France takes the doubles point without much trouble, Romania will have to win three of four singles matches in order to take the tie.
    That’s a daunting task against anyone. That’s a near-impossible task against Tsonga and Gasquet.

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