The United States Davis Cup team will play Italy and Canada in Group F of the round-robin stage of the new-format 2019 Davis Cup by BNP Paribas Finals in Madrid on Nov. 18-24, 2019, following Thursday’s draw ceremony at Madrid’s Real Casa de Correos.
Follow live the Davis Cup Madrid Finals draw ceremony https://t.co/o0i5GBrKx5
— Davis Cup by Rakuten Madrid Finals (@DavisCupFinals) February 14, 2019
The Davis Cup finals will feature 18 teams competing over one week at Madrid’s La Caja Magica, the home of the annual Madrid Open. The competition begins with a six-group round-robin stage, with the winner of each group and the two top-finishing second-place teams advancing to the knockout quarterfinal stage. Each tie will consist of two singles and one doubles match, all best-of-three tiebreak sets.
The winner of Group F will play the winner of Group D in the quarterfinals, a group featuring Belgium, Colombia and Australia.
New U.S. captain Mardy Fish also announced that David Nainkin will serve as his coach, a position held by Jay Berger and Robby Ginepri under former captain Jim Courier. Nainkin, a lead national coach for USTA Player Development based out of the Training Center-West in Carson, Calif., has coached rising American Taylor Fritz for the last several years and was Fish’s coach when he rose to No. 7 in the world in 2011. A former top singles player at UCLA, Nainkin has also coached a number of American pros and juniors since first joining the USTA in 2004, including Sam Querrey and Sloane Stephens.
The U.S. is 7-3 all-time in Davis Cup vs. Italy and last played the Italians in the 1998 semifinals, won by Italy. Italy advanced to the 2019 finals by defeating India, 3-1, in the qualifying round earlier this month, led by Andreas Seppi and Matteo Berrettini. The U.S. is 15-0 all-time in Davis Cup vs. Canada, but the two neighbors haven’t met in Davis Cup since 1965. Canada advanced to the 2019 finals by beating Slovakia, 3-2, in the qualifying round on the backs of young stars Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime.
The U.S. automatically qualified for the year-end competition by reaching the 2018 semifinals. The U.S. leads all nationals with 32 Davis Cup titles and holds a 219-72 all-time Davis Cup record.
For more information, including the full 2019 draw, access to player and historical Davis Cup records, go to www.usta.com/daviscup or www.daviscup.com.
