Gotta say it has been a great finish to the 1st of the three Davis Cup 2024 group stage series matches for the Aussies v France from overnight in Valencia, Spain. Thanasi Kokkinakis got away with a pretty good start when he was simply at the top of his game v Arthur Fils in straight sets, even though this opening singles game wasn’t so easy indeed – 7-6 via 7-4 tiebreak & 7-6 via 7-3 tiebreak. Although in the second singles match, Ugo Humbert was too good for Alexei Popyrin also in straight sets (3-6 & 2-6) which was so unfortunate where Humbert tied with the Aussies at 1-1 apiece for France.
But this tie wasn’t over just yet with the doubles match to settle v the French featuring one of the Paris 2024 men’s double Olympic gold medalist Matt Ebden & one of the new US Open men’s double champ Max Purcell going up against Pierre Hueges Herbert & Edouard Roger-Vasselin. Fortunately, Ebden & Purcell saved the day thanks to our best doubles playing strikeforce as seen regularly across the grand slam tournaments and team group circuit.
They fired off really well where there were some bumps along the way when it comes to the second set but eventually found a way to close out though with the 2-1 series win v France. The final score was 7-5, 5-7 & 6-3 as the Aussies are now onto the 2nd of three series ties in Group B v Czech Republic on Friday morning. Then they will do the best they can possible depending on other results to finish off the group stage weekend on Monday morning v one of the top-ranked sides in Spain.
All they have to do is keep on fighting as another series win would see them one step closer towards locking in that November Finals week spot where the final eight teams will be competing for that one prestigious silverware & no doubt we’d like to have it back this time around after back-to-back recent Final attempts like last year and the year before (in 2022).