Yesterday, the ITF announced the seedings for the first new-look Davis Cup Finals, to be held in Madrid this November. The 18-country field was completed by the 12 home-and-way ties contested last weekend. Those 12 winners will join France, Croatia, Spain, and USA (last year’s semi-finalists) along with the two wild cards, recent champions Argentina and Great Britain.
The six nations who skipped the qualifying round will make up five of the top six seeds. (Spain is 7th, while Belgium, who had to qualify, is 4th.) The preliminary round of the November event will feature six round-robin groups of three, each consisting of one top-six seed, a second country ranked 7-12, and a third ranked 13-18. Seeding really matters, as a top position (deserved or not!) guarantees that a side will avoid dangerous opponents like last year’s finalists France and Croatia. Even the difference between 12 and 13 could prove decisive, as a 7-through-12 spot ensures that a nation will steer clear of the always-strong Spaniards, who are seeded 7th.
The seeds are based on the Davis Cup’s ranking system, which relies entirely on previous Davis Cup results. While the formula is long-winded, the concept is simple: A country gets more points for advancing further each season, and recent years are worth the most. The last four years of competition are taken into consideration. It’s not how I would do it, but the results aren’t bad. Four or five of the top six seeds will field strong sides, and one of the exceptions–Great Britain–would have done so had Andy Murray’s hip cooperated. Spain is obviously misranked, but given the limitations of the Davis Cup ranking system, it’s understandable, as the 2011 champions spent 2015 and 2016 languishing outside the World Group.
We can do better
The Davis Cup rankings have several flaws. First, they rely heavily on a lot of old results. If we’re interested in how teams will compete in November, it doesn’t matter how well a side fared three or four years ago, especially if some of their best players are no longer in the mix. Second, they don’t reflect the change in format. Until last year, doubles represented one rubber in a best-of-five-match tie. A good doubles pair helped, but it wasn’t particularly necessary. Now, there are only two singles matches alongside the doubles rubber. The quality of a nation’s doubles team is more important than it used to be.
Let’s see what happens to the rankings when we generate a more forward-looking rating system. Using singles and doubles Elo, I’m going to make a few assumptions:
- Each country’s top two singles players have a 75% chance of participating (due to the possibility of injury, fatigue, or indifference), and if either one doesn’t take part, the country’s third-best player will replace him.
- Same idea for doubles, but the top two doubles players have an 85% chance of showing up, to be replaced by the third-best doubles player if necessary.
- The three matches are equally important. (This isn’t technically true–the third match is likely to be necessary less than half the time, though when it does decide the tie, it is twice as important as the other two matches.)
- Andy Murray won’t play.
Those assumptions allow us to combine the singles and doubles Elo ratings of the best players of each nation. The result is a weighted rating for each side, one that has a lot of bones to pick with the official Davis Cup rankings.
Forward-looking rankings
The following table shows the 18 countries at the Davis Cup finals along with the 12 losing qualifiers. For each team, I’ve listed their Davis Cup ranking, and their finals seed (if applicable). To demonstrate my results, I’ve shown each nation’s weighted Elo rank and rating and their hard-court Elo rank and rating. The table is sorted by hard-court Elo:
Country DC Rank Seed Elo Rank Elo sElo Rank sElo
ESP 7 7 1 1936 1 1891
CRO 2 2 2 1898 2 1849
FRA 1 1 3 1880 3 1845
USA 6 6 4 1876 4 1835
RUS 21 17 7 1855 5 1827
AUS 9 9 5 1857 6 1820
SRB 8 8 8 1849 7 1808
GER 11 11 6 1855 8 1799
AUT 16 10 1800 9 1766
ARG 3 3 9 1803 10 1755
Country DC Rank Seed Elo Rank Elo sElo Rank sElo
GBR 5 5 11 1796 11 1750
SUI 24 14 1763 12 1749
ITA 10 10 12 1780 13 1745
CAN 14 13 13 1777 14 1744
JPN 17 14 15 1735 15 1719
BEL 4 4 17 1688 16 1673
CZE 13 16 1712 17 1661
NED 19 16 18 1685 18 1643
BRA 28 20 1659 19 1638
IND 20 21 1652 20 1621
Country DC Rank Seed Elo Rank Elo sElo Rank sElo
SVK 29 22 1645 21 1617
CHI 22 18 19 1682 22 1609
KAZ 12 12 26 1582 23 1574
COL 18 15 24 1597 24 1551
SWE 15 27 1570 25 1542
BIH 27 28 1552 26 1540
POR 26 23 1610 27 1535
HUN 23 25 1583 28 1533
UZB 25 29 1491 29 1489
CHN 30 30 1468 30 1465
Spain is the comfortable favorite, regardless of whether we look at overall Elo or hard-court Elo. When the draw is conducted, we’ll see which top-six seed is unlucky enough to end up with the Spaniards in their group, and whether the hosts will remain the favorite.
The biggest mismatch between the Davis Cup rankings and my Elo-based approach is in our assessment of the Russian squad. Daniil Medvedev is up to sixth in my singles Elo ratings, with Karen Khachanov at 10th. Those ratings might be a little aggressive, but as it stands, Russia is the only player with two top-ten Elo singles players. Spain is close, with Rafael Nadal ranked 2nd and Roberto Bautista Agut 11th, and the hosts have the additional advantage of a deep reservoir of doubles talent from which to choose.
In the opposite direction, my rankings do not forecast good things for the Belgians. David Goffin has fallen out of the Elo top 20, and there are no superstar doubles players to pick up the slack. In a just world, Spain and Belgium will land in the same round-robin group–preferably one without the Russians as well.
Madrid or Maldives
The results I’ve shown assume that every top singles player has the same chance of participating. That’s certainly not the case, with high-profile stars like Alexander Zverev telling the press that they’ll be spending the week on holiday in the Maldives. Some teams are heavily dependent on one singles player who could make or break their chances with a decision or an injury.
As it stands, Germany is 8th in the surface-weighted Elo. If we take Zverev entirely out of the mix, they drop to a tie for 14th with Japan. It’s something the German side would prefer to avoid, but it’s not catastrophic, partly because the Germans were never among the favorites, and partly because Zverev could play only one singles rubber per tie and the doubles replacements are competent.
Even more reliant on a single player is the Serbian side, which qualified last weekend without the help of their most dangerous threat, Novak Djokovic. With Djokovic, the Serbs rank 7th–a case where my surface Elo ratings almost agree with the official rankings. But without the 15-time major winner, the Serbs fall down to a tie with Belgium in 16th place. While the Serbs are unlikely to take home the trophy regardless, Novak would make a huge difference.
The draw will take place next Thursday. We’ll check back then to see which sides have the best forecasts, nine months out from the showdown in Madrid.