Roger and Rafa provided a stellar finale to the 2010 season at the ATP World Tour finals, but the French and Serbian teams are just getting warmed up. This Friday, the Belgrade Arena will showcase this year’s Davis Cup final on an indoor hard court. Serbia has never been to the Davis Cup final before, while France is vying for their 10th title with their last coming in 2001 over Australia in Melbourne.
Novak Djokovic and Nenad Zimonjic have arrived in Belgrade from the World Tour finals in London, and quite frankly they looked quite tired at their Davis Cup press conference. Who can blame them after such a long season, but they have a couple of days to get their pep back as well as get pumped up by the sure to be raucous crowd. Victor Troicki and Janko Tipsarevic round out the Davis Cup team, although it has not been determined yet what the match lineup will be.
The Frenchies on the other hand look lively and jovial with the official four-man squad consisting of Gael Monfils, Gilles Simon, Arnaud Clement, and Michael Llodra with Richard Gasquet as an un-official fifth. Captain Guy Forget explained, “I’ve included Richard Gasquet in my squad of four players as required by the ITF because for an event of this importance it strikes me as essential to prepare five players. They are all setting out on an equal footing.” Despite the uncertainty of which players will get the nod from Coach Forget, the French players sure look to be getting on just fine.
