Grand Slam Professional Tennis Predictions and Picks by Nick Bollettieri. US Open, French Open, Wimbledon, Australian Open

Let’s take a look at this Davis Cup tie, which features last year’s runner up, Russia, welcoming the Czech Republic into Moscow.The match-ups for this tie have already been announced, and the Russian captain, Shamil Tarpischev, has certainly surprised me with his choices.

Let’s take a look at the teams and the match-ups…

Russia

• Nikolay Davydenko
• Mikhail Youzhny
• Marat Safin
• Igor Andreev

Czech Republic

• Tomas Berdych
• Radek Stepanek
• Lukas Dlouhy
• Pavel Vizner

Okay, so Russia is sporting Davydenko and Youzhny, the #4 and the #11 players in the world. Davydenko just won the title in Miami, defeating Roddick and Nadal, and Youzhny, well he is recovering from a self-inflicted forehead injury (but nonetheless is a great player). You would figure that they would get the call in the singles match on Friday. Guess again. Tarpischev has picked Safin and Andreev to play in the first singles matches against Berdych and Stepanek.

Safin has won a total of ONE match this year, and that was back in January at the Aussie Open. Andreev is a little better, as he was won nine matches this year, but he has nine losses as well. Well, now you are thinking that Safin and Andreev must have great records against these two. Wrong again. Safin has never faced Berdych, and Andreev is 0-1 against Stepanek. On the other hand, Davydenko is 6-0 against Berdych, and Youzhny is 2-2 against Stepanek. I don’t get this at all, can someone please explain it to me? Does this make sense to anyone??

The only thing I can think is that Tarpischev wants to give the fans their monies worth, and have the tie go all three days and bring out Davydenko and Youzhny on Sunday in some kind of Willis Reed-esque moment. Other than that, who knows.

Well I guess if there is a silver lining, Davydenko and Youzhny are scheduled to play doubles together on Saturday against Vizner/Dlouhy. Good thing they have played a combined total of 12 doubles matches this year. That is far behind the total of 28 that Vizner and Dlouhy have played.

On to the pick…regardless of all that, I still give the Russian’s the edge because of the home crowd. They are difficult to beat in Moscow on clay. If Safin and Andreev both lose their singles matches though, the Czech Republic will be in the drivers seat because both Vizner and Dlouhy are doubles specialists.