Captain Lleyton Hewitt has taken a raffle in entrusting Thanasi Kokkinakis to play Australia’s key opening rubber of their must-win Davis Cup round-robin group stage tie towards Switzerland.
Kokkinakis is lower-ranked than two of his teammates, Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson, and has misplaced his final three Davis Cup singles ties, together with a nervy defeat earlier this week towards British newcomer Jack Draper.
But Hewitt believes the Adelaide participant remains to be the perfect guess to kick off the essential best-of-three-rubber tie within the impartial English venue of Manchester on Saturday which Australia have to win 3-0 to ensure a spot within the eight-team finals in Malaga in November.
A 2-1 victory on the AO Arena is also ok for Hewitt’s males to complete within the prime two within the group and seal qualification, however in that case their destiny wouldn’t be identified till after Sunday’s remaining tie between hosts GB and France.
But with the underside line being that solely victory will actually suffice, the stress is on world No.74 Kokkinakis to ship towards Switzerland’s world No.90 Dominic Stricker, the rising 21-year-old left-hander who made an enormous impression by lately reaching the US Open last-16.
The second rubber will convey collectively Australia’s No.1 Alex de Minaur, who’s risen to 12 on the ATP pc, towards world No.101 Marc-Andrea Huesler, introduced in to switch veteran Stan Wawrinka.
The 38-year-old triple grand slam winner Wawrinka took lots out of himself in two rubbers yesterday throughout the defeat by GB and is scheduled to not play in any respect, with Huesler and Stricker set to additionally play the doubles towards Purcell and Matt Ebden, who’ve received each their rubbers this week.
But each groups are allowed to vary their nominations earlier than the doubles.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
