Three Davis Cup rookies will head to Tashkent, Uzbekistan next month looking to help the U.S. team secure a spot in the 2023 Davis Cup by Rakuten Finals.
Jenson Brooksby, Austin Krajicek and Mackenzie McDonald join Tommy Paul and Rajeev Ram in making up the U.S. team for the 2023 Qualifier, which will be held at the Olympic Tennis School in Tashkent on Feb. 3-4.
The U.S. is 2-0 all-time in Davis Cup against an independent Uzbekistan, and both of those meetings came in the last eight years. The U.S. earned a 3-1 victory in Tashkent in the 2015 World Group Playoffs and a 4-0 win in the 2020 Qualifier in Honolulu, Hawaii.
World No.32 Paul comes into his sixth Davis Cup tie as the squad's highest-ranked singles player for the first time. He made his debut in the U.S.'s last meeting with Uzbekistan in 2020. The team also boasts a pair of Top 10-ranked doubles players in world No. 3 Ram and world No. 10 Krajicek.
Though Krajicek and McDonald are named to the Davis Cup team for the first time, both have decorated resumes in team tennis. Former Texas A&M Aggie Krajicek represented the red, while and blue in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 2021, where he and partner Tennys Sandgren finished just off the medal stand in fourth place. McDonald starred at UCLA in his college days, and was the 2016 NCAA singles and doubles champion.
An interim captain for the tie will be named in the near future, as the USTA and Mardy Fish mutually agreed to move in a new direction with the Davis Cup captaincy in 2023. Further information on the search for a new full-time captain will also be announced at a later date.
The best-of-five match series played over two days, beginning with two singles matches on Friday, Feb. 3. A doubles match and two reverse singles matches will follow on Saturday, Feb. 4. The first nation to win three of those matches will advance to the group stage of the 16-team Finals, which will be held later this year.
For more information, including access to player and historical records, visit the USTA's Davis Cup homepage of the official Davis Cup site.
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