The United States Davis Cup Team made it through to the Group Stage of the Davis Cup Finals in September with a clean, 4-0 sweep of Uzbekistan in Tashkent.
Rajeev Ram and Austin Krajicek won a straight-sets doubles match over Sergey Fomin and Sanjar Fayziev to qualify the Americans for the next stage of the competition, then Denis Kudla wrapped the tie with a dead singles victory over junior Amir Milushev.
“I was excited to see Raj and Austin play today,” said interim captain David Nainkin. “They’ve practiced well all week. They had five great days of preparation, and as anticipated they came out really sharp and got the early break in the first set. And after that it was like two freight trains, there was no stopping them. Austin served great. Eventually he had to serve for the match, and they got the job done.”
The exact dates and sites of the Group Stages have yet to be announced. Qualifiers that come out of the Group Stages will play in the Final 8 November 21-26 in Malaga, Spain, to crown the 2023 champion.
“It’s one step at a time. The first step is to actually quality, and that’s what we’ve done,” Nainkin said. “Well done to everybody that was involved in this process, and we look forward to the next steps.”
On the opening Friday, the U.S. “took care of business” with Mackenzie McDonald and Tommy Paul notching singles victories to put the Americans up 2-0.
The former NCAA champion McDonald defeated Sergey Fomin, 6-4, 6-1, in his Davis Cup debut, and the Australian Open semifinalist Paul edged out a game Khumoyun Sultanov, 6-1, 7-6(6), on the fast-playing indoor courts.
