The Czech Republic and Serbia will resume their intense rivalry in the Davis Cup final when the two nations meet in Belgrade on November 15-17. The playing surface has yet to be determined. Serbian Janko Tipsarevic, who clinched his nation’s semifinal victory over Canada with a win over Vasek Pospisil in the fifth rubber, called the forthcoming tie “very open.”
The countries have faced each other twice since Serbia was recognized as a nation and split those two contests, with Serbia winning a home semifinal on hard courts in 2010 and the Czechs winning a home quarterfinal on clay last year. The Czech Republic faced Yugoslavia nine times when Serbia was part of that country, with the Czechs winning five ties.
“Serbia is an incredibly tough opponent,” Czech captain Jaroslv Navratil told DavisCup.com. “The whole Serbian team is really strong especially when they play at home. We had that experience when we played them in 2010 and it was not easy because they also have a great and very loud crowd which can help them and they have the experience of winning the Davis Cup a couple of years ago and they are still hungry to do it again…they have the player who is No. 1, (Novak) Djokovic and he has good [record] with Tomas [Berdych] and Radek [Stepanek] but you never know. Novak basically can only win two points and they need to win three.”