Sport

The Davis Cup 2023: Manchester’s AO Arena will host Team GB’s group stage fixtures

Gemma Carter September 8, 2023

THE Davis Cup is the premier international tournament in tennis. The competition which takes place annually essentially awards one nation the title of World Champion. 

The tournament’s schedule is stretched across several months of the year. Qualifying stages are followed by the overall finals. A group stage will take place in September of 2023, with the final stage set to commence in November.

The group stages of this year will be hosted in four cities including Manchester, in which the AO Arena will host the action.

Andy Murray headlines Team GB in Manchester

The AO Arena will host all three of Team GB’s group-stage matches. But most vitally, Andy Murray – a hugely successful member of the modern ‘big four’ – will compete this year, meaning his talents will be on display in Manchester. Murray will come into the event off the back of a disappointing second-round US Open exit.

The Scotsman will have to make a quick turnaround from his disappointment in the United States, with the next leg of the major events calendar coming immediately after in Manchester. Murray’s fellow member of the ‘big four’, and rival Novak Djokovic, is the favourite to be the winner in the 2023 US Open betting odds, offered at 5/6 to claim yet another grand slam victory before jetting off to the Davis Cup group stages with Serbia.

The Serbian will not have an easy path to glory with tennis predictions expecting Daniil Medvedev, of Russia, to provide strong opposition for the final grand slam crown of the year.

Murray will be disappointed that an early upset has left him out of the running to potentially put a pause on Djokovic’s dominance. However, the Scottish player’s shortcomings across the Atlantic could spur him on to produce great performances in the Davis Cup group stages in Manchester.

Murray is certainly way beyond his peak playing days, but he has experience of winning at the Olympics. He is no stranger to excelling in international events. In London 2012 and and Rio 2016 he won gold in the men’s singles event.

Murray undoubtedly has the pedigree to potentially lead his team to victory in a ‘world cup of tennis’ having got the better of international rivals on 200 occasions in grand slam events throughout his career.

Qualifying from the group stages in Manchester is step one, but Murray could secure his big comeback into the peak rankings of the game with a triumph in the finals of November.

Team GB faces a group of death in Manchester

The AO Arena is set to host a variety of games this September. All of the Group B contests will take place at the venue, with Australia, France, and Switzerland drawn to compete against Team GB – the quarter undoubtedly makes up the strongest group of the tournament.

The Manchester venue will host fixtures on six days in a row. The teams will all meet each other in a round-robin format with the top two advancing to the knockout stages in November.

The AO Arena will be hosting fixtures in tennis’ World Cup-style competition for the first-ever time and it is likely it will offer the most exciting games of the entire tournament.

Australia finished as runners-up in 2022, France will surely return with a vengeance after failing to reach the finals last year, and Switzerland like Britain is headed by a legendary veteran in Stan Wawrinka.

Any duo of the four teams could realistically qualify from the group this year. Perhaps Team GB could even go all of the way and a sporting fairytale would have begun in Manchester’s AO Arena.