Davis Cup Playoff Draw

This morning the draw took place to determine the ties for the World Group playoffs in Davis Cup, to be played the weekend after the US Open concludes.

Before I get to the matchups, here is a ranking I did of the 16 teams in the playoffs.  This is based on my belief in their ability, independent of surface, to beat the teams ranked below them but lose to the teams ranked above them.  It also assumes all players of that nationality will play i.e. Soderling and Federer.

1) Switzerland
2) Sweden
3) Germany
4) Russia
5) Italy
6) Canada
7) Netherlands
8) Japan
9) Australia
10) South Africa
11) Brazil
12) Belgium
13) Israel
14) Kazakhstan
15) Uzbekistan
16) Chile

Now the draw:

Uzbekistan at Kazakhstan
Australia at Germany
Israel at Japan
Sweden at Belgium
Canada at South Africa
Russia at Brazil
Chile at Italy
Switzerland at the Netherlands

An initial glance no real blockbuster ties but that is probably typical of the playoffs.  GER/AUS has the potential to be a good battle and I also like CAN/RSA pitting two massive servers against each other with not much depth them.  Brazil finally gets a home tie after 5th rubber loses to India and Russia the past two seasons and I think should prevail over a fading Russian team on clay.  ISR/JPN has potential to be a good tie but Japan has that big home court advantage.  Some of these are hard to predict 5 months away especially the health of Soderling which weighs in heavily to the SWE/BEL tie.  But at anyrate, here are my initial winners:

KAZ, GER, JPN, SWE, CAN, BRA, ITA, SUI

There are 4 Asian teams, 3 from the Americas, and 9 Europe/African teams.  And with that, goodbye to Davis Cup until September, save some brief coverage of the zonal group III and IV round robins to played in the next month or two.