A Showdown with a Superstar?

ÖTV’s Opponent in the Davis Cup Final Tournament Has Been Determined!

Yuri Rodionov and his teammates have learned who their next opponent will be.(Bild: GEPA)

Austria’s tennis stars will face Spain in the Davis Cup Finals. The news was announced on Tuesday. This means some exciting matches are in store for Austria’s men’s tennis team! Spain’s superstar, Carlos Alcaraz, was recently sidelined following his long injury layoff and comeback at the US Open. 

Austria’s Davis Cup team will face Spain at the Final 8 tournament featuring the top eight teams in November in Bologna. Last year’s finalist was drawn on Tuesday as the quarterfinal opponent for Jürgen Melzer’s ÖTV squad and is the undisputed favorite. The Final 8 of the men’s team tennis competition will be held from November 24 to 29 on indoor hard courts. Defending champion Italy will face South Korea; Germany will play Great Britain; and the Czech Republic will face Canada.

The ÖTV team, which has qualified for the final tournament for the second time in a row, is the clear underdog. Led by world No. 3 Carlos Alcaraz, seven Spaniards are ranked among the top 70 in the world, while Austria has no top-100 players. In the qualifying round last weekend, the six-time Davis Cup champion easily defeated Chile 4-0 with Rafael Jodar (ATP No. 14), Daniel Merida (ATP No. 41), Martin Landaluce (ATP No. 62), and the doubles team of Pedro Martinez and Jaume Munar.

No matter the lineup, Spainisthe favorite
“A lot depends on who’s on Spain’s team. If Alcaraz and Jodar play, it’s going to be a huge challenge. If, as was recently the case in Chile, Jodar and Merida play, then we’ll be the underdogs, but I believe our team has proven time and again in the past that it can rise to the occasion. It’ll have to do the same against Spain. That’s an extremely difficult task,” explained Davis Cup captain Melzer.

Carlos Alcaraz(Bild: AP/Yuki Iwamura)

A year ago, Alcaraz was absent for the 0–2 loss in the final against Italy, which had kicked off its run toward a third straight title with a 2–0 win over Austria. “We’ll approach it the same way we always do: We’ll prepare as best we can, see who’s available and could play, and then give it our all. Jurij (Rodionov), in particular, played really well there last year. The conditions suited him, and in a ‘best-of-three’ series, anything is possible,” said Melzer.

ÖTV hopes for strong fan support
“Spain is a real tough opponent,” emphasized ÖTV President Richard Grasl. “But as we saw against Belgium, anything is possible in the Davis Cup. “We hope that many fans will join us in Bologna, and we’re already working on organizing a fan trip,” said Grasl. Against Belgium, Austria—with Jurij Rodionov, Lukas Neumayer, and Lucas Miedler/Neil Oberleitner—secured its spot in the final tournament with a 3-1 victory in Vienna. “It’s an incredible achievement. To pull it off a second time is really cool. The team is really strong; everyone is rising to the occasion,” said Dominic Thiem on ServusTV’s “Sport und Talk aus dem Hangar-7,” praising his successors.

Dominic Thiem(Bild: ServusTV / Manuel Seeger)

Participation in the final tournament guarantees the team a minimum prize purse of $500,000 (436,300 euros), 80 percent of which goes to the players.