U.S. Davis Cup captain Bob Bryan, who has won 16 Grand Slam doubles titles and was recently inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, made a bold decision to change his doubles lineup against Australia on Thursday, which resulted in a loss.
With the best-of-three quarterfinal tied at 1-1, Bryan decided to switch from the regular pairing of Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram, silver medalists from the Paris Olympics, to two singles players, Tommy Paul and Ben Shelton.
Unfortunately, Paul and Shelton were defeated 6-4, 6-4 by the Australian team of Matt Ebden and Jordan Thompson. This loss sent Australia into the semifinals and ended the Americans’ chance at winning their first Davis Cup title in 17 years.
“We were hoping to catch the Aussies a little bit by surprise,” Bryan explained. “We took a shot at it.”
Australian captain Lleyton Hewitt wasn’t surprised, saying, “I’d seen (Paul and Shelton) do drills during the week, so it wasn’t a surprise.”
The U.S. team holds the record for the most Davis Cup titles with 32, but their last victory came in 2007, when Bryan was part of the team. The American men haven’t reached the Davis Cup semifinals since 2018.
Ebden and Thompson are both experienced doubles players with Grand Slam titles. In contrast, Paul and Shelton have mostly focused on singles, with little doubles experience. The two had only played together once before, at the 2023 Miami Open, where they won two matches but lost in the quarterfinals.
Bryan explained that his decision was partly due to the fact that Ebden was more familiar with Krajicek and Ram’s playing style, as Ebden and John Peers had defeated them in the Paris Games final in August.
Another reason was that Shelton had already played a singles match earlier in the day, which Bryan felt might have kept him in a competitive rhythm.
Shelton had lost his earlier singles match to Thanasi Kokkinakis, 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (14), after fighting off six match points but failing to convert four of his own. “Heartbreaking, for sure,” Shelton said.
Taylor Fritz, U.S. Open runner-up, then leveled the score for the U.S. with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Alex de Minaur.
It was after that match, during a brief 15-minute break on an indoor hard court at the Palacio de Deportes Jose Maria Martina Carpena in southern Spain, that Bryan made the decision to change his doubles lineup.
“As a captain, you have to make tough decisions,” Bryan said. “I had a lot of information behind the decision. We’ve been here for six days, practicing. We know how everyone is feeling. And we know a lot about the opponents that we’re playing.
It’s a world of analytics. You talk with other coaches, you talk with the players… This wasn’t a black-and-white decision. It was a razor-thin edge, and we went with it.”
Thursday also marked Shelton’s debut in Davis Cup competition. “To not get a win in one of those two matches,” Shelton said, “hurts pretty bad.”
