Sri Lanka will take on Lebanon in a must win clash in the Davis Cup Group II relegation series in a bid to survive in the top division. We take a look at the clash between Sri Lanka and Lebanon as well as the path ahead for the nations in the series.
The Davis Cup being one of the prestigious trophies began in the year 1900 as a competition between the United States of America and Great Britain. With the passage of time, the Davis Cup went to be the premier tennis championship with over a total of 130 countries participating in the top draw under different regional divisions. The Davis cup still continues to attract the top seeds such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadaj & Novak Djkovic who partake in playing for their respective countries.
Current Structure of the Davis Cup
The current Davis Cup Format was introduced in 1981. The 16 elite national teams participate in the top stage of the format which is known as the ‘World Group’. The remaining countries compete in three regional zones (Americas, Asia/Oceania and Europe/Africa) which are divided into a further four groups (Group 1, Group 2, Group 3 and Group 4). Nations who are a part of the World Group, Group 1 and Group 2 compete using a knockout format where those who progress move into a higher group and those who lose get relegated to a lower group whereas those who are a part of Group 3 and Group 4 play a round robin tournament with the same concepts of promotion and relegation.
Head to Head
Sri Lanka have met Lebanon on four different occasions and the last match up was in Lebanon way back in 2013 where both teams were in a similar relegation series. Sri Lanka won the Lebanon encounter 3-2 to keep their Group II hopes alive and with that win Sri Lanka have maintained a 4-0 tie win streak against the Lebanese thus far in the Davis Cup.
On paper Sri Lanka have themselves a comfortable cushion having played 126 ties and winning 59 of them.Lebanon on the other hand have participated in 90 ties winning 46 of them.
The Format
The Davis Cup relegation play off will be worked out on a span of three days and will consist of four singles and one doubles. On day 1 which is the 18th, the 1st and 2nd singles will be played and it will be followed up by the doubles which is scheduled for Saturday. The final day of the series will be on Sunday the 20th of July where the final two singles will played.
The victor of the series is judged by the number of wins each country gets and the first to reach thethree game wins will be adjudged as winners. The winners will continue to stay in the top division while the losing side will go back to the lower Division III where they will have to work their way up back next year.
Sri Lanka currently has only one ATP world singles ranked player that is Sharmal Dissanyake while Lebanese Giovana Samaha is the other ranked player with ATP points currently. These two will be compile up for the first single and the remainder of the games will follow.
Games start every day at 1000h at the SLTA Clay courts.
The draw for the Davis Cup 2015 clash will be as follows
Day 1
1st Single : Sharmal Dissanayake v Jadd Ballout
2nd Single : Harshana Godamanne v Hady Habib
Day 2
Doubles : Sharmal Dissanayake & Harshana Godamanne vs Giovani Samaha & Jad Ballout
Day 3
3rd Single : Sharmal Dissanayake v Giovani Samaha
4th Single : Harshana Godamanne v Jad Ballout
