TENNIS: Jon Swift
THE Davis Cup presents a very different face from the dour business of collecting ATP points. It showed in the seamless polite conversation at this weeks draw where glasses clinked during the announcements and gloved waiters passed around trays of genteel canapes druing question time.
You have to believe that this difference is a marked one when world No 1 Thomas Muster, the top player in the Austrian team, rates his sides chances at no better than 15% for this weekends World Group tie against South Africa on grass at the Wanderers.
I would give the South Africans an 85% chance, was Musters assessment. And while the games top clay court exponent may well have been overstating the case, the Austrians have some problems in the make- up of their combination.
Austrian captian Ronnie Leitgeb was forced to rule out world No 19 Gilbert Schaller as the second singles player in favour of 19-year-old debutant Wolfgang Schranz to face the South African singles duo of Wayne Ferreira and Marcos Ondruska.
Schaller has a shoulder injury which got worse over the last couple of days and he finds it difficult to serve, said Lietgeb.
South African captain Danie Visser also sprang some surprises. Ferreira and Ondruska were the expected singles soldiers. But Gary Muller, left out of the initial nominations in favour of John Lafnie de Jager, will partner Ferreira in the doubles with veteran Christo van Rensburg on the bench as singles back-up.
Yes, there is something very different about the Davis Cup; a team competition in what is essentially an individualistic sport. Over the next three days of the sell-out tie, we shall see first hand just how different.
Friday singles: Ondruska v Muster Ferreira v Schranz
Saturday doubles: Ferreira and Muller v Muster and Alex Antonitsch
Sunday singles: Ferriera v Muster Ondruska v Schranz