The finals, for which Team GB qualified today, will be played at the SuperTennis Arena Bologna Fiera in Bologna from 24th to 29th November. Along with Italy, which qualified automatically as the host & is the defending champion, & Team GB, the other countries competing will be Austria, Canada, Czechia, Germany, South Korea & Spain.
Leon Smith is quoted by the Beeb as follows: "When you get to the Final 8 and you play one of the seeded teams, they are extremely strong. "[Italy's Jannik] Sinner could be back playing, [Spain's Carlos] Alcaraz has talked about his commitment to it at the end of the year, but you've got a chance. You try and steal one of the singles, and it goes to the doubles and you've got a good doubles team. There's a lot of excitement about it. It brings the team together again."
It's safe to say that there'll be no Jack Draper in the British team for the finals, but presumably Cam will be back, if he's fit (apparently, he pulled out on Friday after feeling pain in his arm during a practice session), while Arthur & Toby are able back-ups. It seems equally safe to say that we have a "good doubles team": Henry Patten & Neal Skupski again, anybody?
Question raised by JonH on the Qualifiers thread & a potential conversation starter:
Assuming we get through, how do the seedings work in the finals - looking at the nations qualified so far, could we be seeded? (Based on DC nations rankings I'm guessing?).
Short answer is no, we won't be seeded. It's not easy to find the information on seedings, but from a Spanish website I see that Italy, Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic will be the seeds, with Spain and Italy likely to be drawn so as to meet in the final.
Short answer is no, we won't be seeded. It's not easy to find the information on seedings, but from a Spanish website I see that Italy, Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic will be the seeds, with Spain and Italy likely to be drawn so as to meet in the final.
Yeah apparently follows the ITF rankings - these will be updated as of tomorrow but, as of the current edition released in February, the top 4 seeds are as per above , then the others a Austria, Canada, GB and Korea in that order of ranking.