The Davis Cup quarterfinals are in full swing this weekend around the globe and its most successful countries over the history of the competition are meeting once again in a thrilling tie set in Brisbane.
Great rivalries define the success of any sport, just let’s think about “El Clásico” football match between Barcelona and Real Madrid, or the Boston Celtics-L.A. Lakers rivalry for which the NBA has been famous worldwide during the 80’s.
Australia against U.S.A. is by far the most-played tie in Davis Cup history, with its 47th chapter taking place this weekend in Brisbane.
Overall, the Americans lead the head-to-head record 26 to 20 and they won the last episode, played last year on Melbourne’s venerable Kooyong grass courts.
Australia kept the choice of ground rights this year after the nations’ previous match, in 1999, was moved by the ITF to the American soil as part of the 100th-anniversary celebration of the Davis Cup (by coincidence the team’s captains, Hewitt and Courier played in that 1999 quarterfinal, which Australia won by 4-1).
The two teams have played the final one against the other for 16 years in a row between 1938 and 1959; a record that is partly due to the Challenge round formula used until 1972, which gave the defending champion an automatic bye into the next year final.
Their glorious past has set the highest benchmark for excellence in team competition, but in the last two decades both nations have struggled tremendously; the last time the U.S. clinched a title happened in 2007, while for the Aussies the last hurrah came in 2003 with a home win against the grass-allergic Spaniards.
The future might look bright again Down Under, with the rise of the controversial star Nick Kyrgios, who has been playing his best tennis recently beating Novak Djokovic twice on hard courts.
