Expert
After a dominant day of play in the singles, Australia will look to wrap up their Davis Cup world group playoffs tie against Slovakia in doubles on Day 2. Join The Roar for live scores and coverage of the match from 1pm (AEST).
Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic both won their matches in straight sets on the opening day of competition and it leaves Australia needing just one win from the final three matches to secure the tie.
However, if there is one match Australia are a chance of losing, this looks as if it’s likely to be it.
Sam Groth and John Peers will be the men to step up for Australia, and while Peers is known for his doubles play being ranked in the top 20 in the world, Groth is not so and moreover has had a shocking year playing singles.
Peers paired up at the recent Olympics with Chris Guccione and was knocked out in the first round, while he has only ever played two matches with Groth.
Both of those came at the Sydney International in January, as they got out of the first round but not the second.
Groth of course, has his massive serve and if that fires then Australia will win a lot of free points, but it is only one element and over five sets, Australia will need other elements of their game to stand up.
On the other side, Slovakia will be represented by Andrej Martin and Igor Zelenay who have played 22 matches as a pair and are the regular Davis Cup doubles combination for their country.
Despite a first round loss at the Olympics, they have combined for two wins in the ‘world cup of tennis’ so far this season and had some other promising results including victory at Cordenons and Vicenza.
While Martin doesn’t like grass in the slightest, Zelenay has quite a good record on the surface and after Martin played yesterday against Kyrgios, he will have a better understanding of how the court is playing.
Prediction
The Slovakian pair have plenty of experience playing as part of the same team and with Martin playing yesterday he should have worked himself into just a little bit of form, even though he lost. Australia will put a fight, but ultimately this tie should stay live into Sunday.
Slovakia in five sets.
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Follow Scott on Twitter @sk_pryde