Davis Cup 2023: Croatia, Switzerland, France, Finland, Netherlands all join Great Britain at finals
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Updated 05/02/2023 at 22:51 GMT
Croatia and Switzerland both booked their places at the 2023 Davis Cup finals alongside Great Britain, who beat Colombia on Saturday. Borna Coric beat Dominic Thiem to secure Croatia's win over Austria while Stan Wawrinka won the decisive match for Switzerland against Germany. Finland qualified for the finals for the first time in their history, and Netherlands also won.
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Croatia qualified for the Davis Cup finals with victory over Austria.
The 2018 champions suffered a surprise defeat in the doubles to prevent a clean sweep, but Borna Coric beat Dominic Thiem 7-6(3) 6-2 to ensure a 3-1 win.
Croatia will join Great Britain in the finals after they beat Colombia.
The next phase of the Davis Cup is the group stage in September. From the group stage, eight nations will advance to the knockout stages in November.
Stan Wawrinka rolled back the years to secure Switzerland’s place in the finals.
The three-time Grand Slam champion was beaten in his opening match of the tie by Germany’s Alexander Zverev, and then lost in the doubles.
However, he came through when it mattered most as he beat Daniel Altmaier 6-3 5-7 6-4 in the decisive singles after Marc-Andrea Huesler had kept the tie alive with victory over Zverev.
"I'm happy I won one point and the last one was the most important," said Wawrinka, 37, who was playing his first Davis Cup tie in eight years.
“We have a great team. They've been building this team for the last few years. I was happy to come back if they need me to help. I'm the oldest by far, but we had a great week. We were really helping each other; it was a great week for us."
Zverev had the chance to secure the tie for Germany but could not follow up his victory over Wawrinka with another positive result against Huesler.
"He played extremely well," said Zverev. "He played very aggressive, didn’t let me go into the rallies. I think it was also a very tactical move by him not to really go into rallies with me."
Switzerland weren’t the only nation who staged a comeback to reach the finals.
South Korea rallied from 2-0 down to beat Belgium 3-2, while singles wins for Adrian Mannarino and Ugo Humbert saw France come from 2-1 behind to beat Hungary.
The Netherlands were 3-0 winners over Slovakia while Finland beat Argentina 3-1 to reach the finals for the first time.
Emil Ruusuvuori was the hero for Finland with three victories – two in singles and one in doubles.
The 16 teams confirmed for the Davis Cup finals are:
- Australia
- Canada
- Finland
- France
- Great Britain
- Italy
- Netherlands
- Serbia
- South Korea
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United States
- Croatia
- Chile
- Czech Republic
DAVIS CUP 2023 KEY DATES
- September 12-17: Group stages, Spain
- November 21-26: Finals
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