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Tommy Paul - US Open 2024, Ben Shelton - Wimbledon 2024

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USA Davis Cup captain ‘doesn’t regret’ controversial choice after defeat

Matthew Johns
Matthew Johns
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USA Davis Cup captain Bob Bryan has defended his decision to select two singles players for the deciding doubles rubber in their quarter-final defeat to Australia.Bryan began his captaincy of the American team last year, and had a strong lineup available to him for the Finals in Malaga this year that included Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Ben Shelton, and doubles specialists Rajeev Ram and Austin Krajicek. In yesterday’s quarter-final tie against Australia, former doubles No.1 Bryan selected Shelton to kick things off in singles action. Despite having four match points, Shelton lost the opening tie to Thanasi Kokkinakis, with the American’s having it all to do. Top ranked singles player and US Open finalist Fritz began the comeback with a straight sets victory over Alex de Minaur, meaning that it was all going down to the deciding doubles. Bryan had originally selected the pairing of Ram and Krajicek, but made the last-minute decision to change this to Shelton and Paul, who had only played three previous matches together. And this risk did not pay off, with the American’s losing in straight sets to Jordan Thompson and Matt Ebden, who clinched the tie for Australia and sent USA home.
This decision from Bryan received a lot of criticism on social media, including from four-time doubles Grand Slam champion Rennae Stubbs, “Doubles specialists that are major champions, more than not, will beat great singles players that haven’t played together before.”
Although there was a lot of backlash for this decision, Bryan declared that he did not have any regrets and revealed why he made this selection change when speaking to the media in his post-match press conference. “In this case it was a last-minute decision and I don’t regret it,” said Bryan. “I was hoping to take the Australians by surprise.” He continued, “Between matches we have 15 minutes to talk about the matches, and that’s when I made the decision. I was up against Jordan Thompson, US Open champion and Wimbledon finalist, an accomplished doubles player. “I was also up against Matthew Ebden, who won the Olympics. Both of them have seen Krajicek/Ram play many times in recent years, but not so much Ben and Tommy. It was a tactical question to take them by surprise, we tried until the end, but they were tougher.” This continues a relatively poor past few years for the USA Davis Cup team, who have not won the title for 17 years and last surpassed the quarter-finals in 2018.
Inside the baseline…To put it frankly, it was a truly baffling decision from Bob Bryan. Even more so when you consider that he is a 23-time doubles Grand Slam champion and spent the majority of his career dominating as a doubles specialist. Rajeev Ram and Austin Krajicek won a silver medal at the Paris Olympics earlier this year, so know how to play well together, but decisions like this justify why the USA Davis Cup team have been performing way below par as of late. At the same time, Italy went for a similar approach yesterday and their change paid off, so it has been seen to go both ways.
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