Finland’s inexperienced Davis Cup team overthrew the up-and-coming United States. In advance, the Finnish team was anything but the favorite in the match.
The Finnish men’s national tennis team defeated the United States in the opening part of the Davis Cup finals with a 3–0 victory and advanced to the quarterfinals starting November 21 in Málaga.
Finland has never been in the top eight in the Davis Cup.
Urheilu highlights ten facts that help to understand what kind of superpower Finland’s tennis players came to be overthrown.
1
Although the Davis Cup has been played since 1900, Finland and the USA met in the first event of the team competition only for the first time.
The reason can be found in Finland, which had never advanced to the top 16 in the tournament before this year.
Finland managed to get a place in the limelight in 1990, 1999, 2002 and 2022, but Sweden, Italy, Holland and Belgium each in turn torpedoed the Finns’ further dreams.
5
US tennis players went through a successful generational change in the last decade. This was clearly demonstrated at the recently played US Open, where five of the 32 ranked players in men’s singles were from the United States.
In the US Open, 32 players have been placed in the tournament chart since 2001. The USA has had five players among the seeded team only twice before, in 2001 and 2004.
Before 2001, 16 players were seeded in US Open singles. This year, there were three Americans among the 16 placed men. The last time the number was higher was in 1996.
This year, three American men were seen in the quarterfinals of the US Open men’s singles, i.e. in the top eight. The last time the number was higher was in 1995.
7
Otto Virtanen the loser of the thriller fight Mackenzie McDonald is only the seventh best American on the ATP tour men’s singles world rankings.
However, McDonald can be found on the ATP list at number 39, while Virtanen is 125th. Finland’s number one player Emil Ruusuvuori is 57th on the list.
Lost in Ruusuvuori Tommy Paul ranks 13th on the world list. He played in the semi-finals of the Australian Open in January.
Virtanen from Finland’s singles duo recently lost his Grand Slam debut. Rusuvuori has never progressed beyond the second round in the singles of Grand Slam tournaments.
32
The USA has won the Davis Cup a record 32 times.
From 1900 to 1971, the reigning champion qualified directly for the Davis Cup final until the rules were changed.
The USA has the most championships, 9, also in the era that started in 1972. Its previous championship was from 2007.
41
The numbers in question describe the US doubles pair Austin Krajic too and By Rajeev Ram number of ATP wins. Krajicek is number one in the doubles world ranking and Ram is fifth.
Ram has won the US Open three times in a row and is the winner of the Australian Open in 2020. Krajicek, on the other hand, is the reigning French Open champion.
Defeated by the American duo Harri Heliövaara and Patrick from Kaukova can be found in the doubles rankings at positions 30 and 796.
147
This is how many men’s singles Grand Slam titles have been won by Americans. With Pete Sampras has the most titles among Americans, 14. The previous champion is Andy Roddickwho won the US Open in 2003.
896
The men’s ATP tour introduced a computer-based world ranking in 1973. Since then, 28 players have held the number one spot. Six of them are from the United States.
In 50 years, the Americans have been at the top of the list for 896 weeks, or a good 17 years.
Captain of the Finnish Davis Cup team Jarkko Nieminen has been ranked 13th as the best Finn in the men’s singles world rankings. This happened in July 2006.
1 118
Number 1,118 is obtained by adding up the ranking positions of the doubles and doubles players who represented Finland in Split. The number is the highest to advance to the last eight in a modern Davis Cup since 2019.
700,000
The USTA has 700,000 members. The number of members of the Finnish Tennis Association is 27,700.
23,000,000
According to the USTA, 23 million Americans played tennis in 2022. There are 130,000 fans in Finland.