Davis Cup First Round, Day 2

The first week of the Davis Cup is about to wrap up. Three of the eight matchups have already drawn to a close, and at least four of the remaining five will finish tomorrow, and I expect that the fifth one will as well.

The ones that are already done, and none of them are surprises, are Croatia over Ecuador, the Czech Republic over Belgium, and France over Germany. What may be a bit of a surprise is that neither Russia nor Serbia closed out their ties. Both the Indians and Americans fielded strong doubles teams - well, at least the Americans tried to.

Mike Bryan came down with food poisoning, which meant that the Americans' best hope of getting the doubles point was in jeopardy. Amazingly, big John Isner stepped up and replaced the ailing Bryan, and served superbly in the Americans' defeat of Zimonjic and Tipsarevic. Kudos to Isner, but he'll need to build on that confidence to have a chance in the match against Novak Djokovic, tomorrow. If he somehow manages to win, I do give the Americans of making an impossible comeback, because Querrey has a real chance against Troicki. But it's a huge ask for Isner.

India managed their doubles point against Russia, but that was really their only chance. Russia's taking this one. I expect that the coach may replace Kunitsyn with Andreev for the second singles match just to be safer, but it probably won't matter.

Switzerland has about as much chance to win both singles points tomorrow as the United States does, but it's still a chance. Don't look for a first-round upset of the defending champs this year.

Argentina-Sweden is the most interesting match-up for tomorrow. Argentina is actually up 2-1, when Nalbandian joined in for the doubles and won the point with relative ease. I'm curious to see if he'll get put in the tie for one of the reverse singles. It seems like a sure thing, but I'm not 100% on his health. This one is a toss-up.

Chile is a day behind the other matches, but it's almost certain that the tie will end tomorrow as well. Massu and Gonzalez both won in four sets. They'll team up for the doubles point tomorrow, and almost certainly will win. They're a gold-medal winning team, as you may recall.

There's still a lot of tennis to play, though, so we'll just see what happens tomorrow.