Tennis At the other end of the world: Luxembourg fights for promotion in the Davis Cup

First 9,300 kilometers to Hong Kong, then another 9,400 to Palmerston North. “It’s actually great to travel to countries like this and play Davis Cup,” says FLT captain Gilles Muller before the Luxembourg team’s duel in New Zealand. “But I would have preferred to avoid such a long journey. After we played in Colombia in February, it couldn’t have been worse now.” While Muller talks about the trip to the other side of the world, it is just 12:30 p.m. in Luxembourg, and in New Zealand it is already the middle of the night, 10:30 p.m. He and his players had to adjust to this time before the duel.

In order to prepare as best as possible and to get used to the time, the team around Muller and his players Chris Rodesch, Alex Knaff, Aaron Gil Garcia, Raphael Calzi and Gilles Kremer spent two weeks in Hong Kong halfway through the tournament – and played two tournaments there before moving on to Down Under.

Müller is satisfied with the preparation. Above all, Chris Rodesch has once again demonstrated his strong form with two more tournament victories. “Chris is now coming into the Davis Cup with a lot of confidence. Alex is also playing good tennis, after his year didn’t start out as he had hoped. I’m confident. Neither of them has ever disappointed in the Davis Cup. I assume that they won’t do the same this time.”

Müller described Rodesch’s development in the past few months as “impressive”. The 23-year-old only finished his studies in early summer and started his professional career. Shortly before that, he had been suffering from mononucleosis. “Since then, he has played seven tournaments and won four of them.” He reached the final once more and the semifinal once. “That shows how strong he is,” says Müller. “As a tennis player, you will play a lot and win a lot.” That gives you confidence, and you can see that in him at the moment. He has taken a step forward, especially in terms of maturity. He makes the right decisions and plays the right ball at the right moment – at the moment, things are running a bit automatically for him.”

Muller also warned before the Davis Cup: “We hope that Chris takes the momentum with him.” But we also have to make sure that he stays down to earth.” This was not meant negatively or personally. “When you win a lot of matches, you often become very self-confident and then you suddenly think: I can win this match even if I only give 99 percent.” And then you skip a training session if you are really tired,” explains Müller. “A slight arrogance established itself. I have experienced this myself. People have to find the right balance. You cannot rest on your laurels, you have to keep going. Chris has done that very well so far.” The result was again the good results and the many victories. After all, Rodesch has been unbeaten for 15 matches.

For the first time, he will also be number one in the Luxembourg Davis Cup team – in the prescribed matches, Knaff was always ahead of Rodesch in the world rankings and was therefore number one in the team. Now it’s the other way around. “For us, everything stays the same,” says Müller. The only thing that changes is the order of the matches against the opponent’s number one and two.

The New Zealanders are better placed in the national rankings, 20 places ahead of Luxembourg, in 45th place. Muller still expects a duel on equal terms. “I don’t know exactly what to think of this ITF national ranking,” he says. “We beat South Africa in February last year, and then Slovenia as well.” The South Africans, however, lost another game and have only now moved up from Group III – and have scored more points than us. I don’t really understand why that is. That’s why I don’t look at this ranking. I don’t think we are as well placed as we should be.”

The player ranking is more meaningful. However, here too, New Zealand’s two best players, Kiranpal Pannu (ATP 454) and Ajeet Rai (ATP 498), are ranked slightly higher than Rodesch (ATP 507) and Knaff (ATP 644). “But there are no big differences,” says Müller. In addition, after his tournament victory in Hong Kong, Rodesch will move up a few places in the new ranking next week and will then in all probability even be ahead of the two New Zealanders. “The differences are minimal, I expect matches on equal terms in which small details make the difference,” says Müller. “If we perform well, there’s a good chance we’ll win.” But if we don’t perform well, there’s also a good chance we’ll lose.”

Muller has been racking his brains for a long time about the right line-up for his team. It is clear that Rodesch and Knaff will normally play all the singles matches. After the Luxembourgers missed out on promotion to World Group I in the playoffs in Colombia, despite already being 2-0 up, there is still a question mark over the doubles match in particular. Rodesch and Knaff lost this match in Colombia and then their two singles matches. “It is no secret that the two of them form our best doubles team,” says Müller. “If we manage to take another 2-0 lead, the question is whether we should let them play in doubles again or whether it would be better to rest them so that they are fresher afterwards to get another point in the singles. This consideration is there with the experience we had in February.” The focus is initially on the two singles matches on Saturday night (from 2 a.m. Luxembourg time). “We first have to see how these go,” says Müller. “After that, we will decide at short notice how things will continue in the doubles.”

The objectives are clear. After the FLT team had a taste of World Group I in February, the Luxembourgers now want to qualify for the promotion playoffs in World Group II. If they lose, they will have to play in the relegation playoffs next year to avoid relegation. Muller is not thinking about that. “We want to win,” he says. “With the great hope that we will finally have a game at home again next year.”