IT has seemed a world away since Spain lifted the 2019 Davis Cup. While the 2020 edition was ultimately cancelled and had to be postponed until 2021, it gives tennis fans extra time to work out what teams might look like when it recommences.

Draft Central will take a look at various nations over the break and see what the team might look like. Today’s team is Serbia, ranked seventh in the world on the Davis Cup rankings, and one that while they ultimately fell short of making the Davis Cup semi-finals due to a shock loss to Russia, they won the smaller ATP Cup less than two months later.

TEAM:

#1 Novak Djokovic
#26 Dusan Lajovic
#31 Filip Krajinovic
#44 Miomir Kecmanovic

Unlike some of the nations at the top end with one elite player (such as Austria), Serbia has some good depth to its team following the world number one Novak Djokovic. The Serbian star almost hauled his team over the line against Russia in 2019, but could not get up in the doubles, though he won his singles and Filip Krajinovic dropped his which cost them in the end.

At that stage, Krajinovic was the preferred second singles player to Djokovic, and the Serbians had knocked over world number ones France, as well as destroyed the lowly ranked Japan in the lead-up to the effective elimination match. Now Dusan Lajovic has leapfrogged Krajinovic in the rankings and the Serbians have three genuine just-about Top 30 players to utilise for the Davis Cup.

This is not to discount young gun Miomir Kecmanovic who is at number 44 in the world and should be considered to make a Davis Cup debut at some point. Given Serbia was announced as a wildcard for the 2020 Finals – which were then pushed back to next year, they will automatically head to the three-match format, which can allow them to just play singles players who also suit up in doubles.

The top two ranked doubles players are Lajovic and specialist doubles talent, Nikola Cacic, but with Djokovic next, the world number one could easily fill that role as well, Janko Tipsarevic and Viktor Troicki usually fill out the side when bringing six players on-board, but now both are mid-30s, there is every chance Serbia fronts up with the younger side – though Kecmanovic is seven years younger than any of the others. Overall, expect Serbia to be a threat once again.

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