It is a mouth-watering Davis Cup semi-final: Australia v Great Britain, with two of the sport’s grittiest heroes, Andy Murray and Lleyton Hewitt, lining up against each other in the United Kingdom this September.
Excited headline writers in Australia are billing it as the “Ashes of Tennis”, hoping to inflict a “double dose of sporting pain on the old enemy” by winning the cricketing Ashes first and then a place in the Davis Cup final.
On paper, it would seem Australia have the edge with exciting talents such as Nick Kyrgios, Bernard Tomic, Sam Groth and Thanasi Kokkinakis, who are all ranked inside the top 70, to call on and the indomitable Hewitt as back-up.
The Great Britain team, on the other hand, might seem like a one-man army with Murray featuring in nine of the 11 matches they have won over the past two years.
If the world No 3 goes deep into the second week of the US Open, he could arrive a bit exhausted for the Davis Cup semis, which will start five days after the final at Flushing Meadows.
The Australians (8-4) are also ahead in head-to-head meetings, but should they really fancy their chances with the “team” they have?
World No 40 Kyrgios looked very un-Australian with his cry of “I don’t want to be here” during his loss to No 115 Alexsandr Nedovyesov on the opening day of their quarter-final against Kazakhstan, and Tomic was not even picked for that tie because he is in dispute with Tennis Australia and Kokkinakis, for all his talent, is not the finished product yet.
Their tennis team, then, does not seem as formidable, or united, as their cricket side.
Australians should be careful about their predictions for the Davis Cup.
After all, their predictions for cricket’s Ashes have not always been spot on.
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