Davis gutted by loss

Steve Davis was so disappointed with losing to Stephen Lee in the final qualifying round for the World Snooker Championship that he left Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport without making comment.

The 10-2 mauling means that Davis’s season has ended prematurely. Before his failure to qualify for the World Championship, he also failed to make the cut for the China Open, which commences on March 28.
Davis, a six-time winner at the Crucible, had been hoping to reach the televised stages of the event, which will run from April 16 to May 2.

The 53-year-old harboured dreams of emulating his previous successes, as well as proving that last year’s defeat of John Higgins in the second round was no fluke. Although the most up to date snooker betting odds would have made Davis an outsider had he qualified, he could have still caused an upset or two.

Davis crashed out to eventual winner Neil Robertson 13-5 at the quarter-finals stage last year. Robertson will be hoping to become only the third man to successfully defend his crown at the Sheffield venue later this year.
Davis was clearly dejected when he left the English Institute of Sport, particularly as this is the first season since 1978 when he has failed to qualify for both the UK Championship and the World Championship. He has also dropped out of the world’s top 32 players. This means that serious questions are being asked about his future.

Dejection for Davis meant delight for Lee though and it was hard for him to conceal his amazement post-match.

He said: “I’m over the moon to beat Steve Davis 10-2.

“I couldn’t tell you how bad I’d feel if I didn’t get to the Crucible. It would have left a nasty taste after an okay season.

“Steve didn’t really know where the table had gone when I was 6-0, 7-0 up.”

The draw for the first round of the World Championship takes place next Monday, March 21 when the 16 qualifiers will find out which one of the 16 seeded potters they will play.

Davis Cup final shows how far Serbia have come

In the early 1990s, Serbia was a war torn nation in which tennis was barely given a second thought. However, as the 90s drew to a close and now, as the 2000s come to an end, it appears that Serbia has managed to make itself a real powerhouse in the world of tennis with tennis betting odds backing them for regular success.

OK, so the Davis Cup does not receive too much press attention here in the UK, but the Serbian nation is currently entering a state of sustained frenzy as they look forward to hosting the final of the Davis Cup against a French side that they really do have every chance of beating.

With the French side without big guns such as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Julien Benneteau, who are both forced to miss out due to injury, and the Serbs likely to receive huge support from a partisan crowd, it appears that the Serbians could go from war to the top of the tennis world within a relatively short space of time.

This is something that could be made all the more possible if they see their hero Novak Djokovic display his best tennis and employ his leadership skills to guide the team to victory. Djokovic hasn’t had the best year of his career by any stretch of the imagination but any thoughts of a poor individual season would surely be overshadowed by the pride that he would feel if he was able to lift the Davis Cup.

However, whilst the fairytale ending of Serbia winning the trophy is still the likely outcome according to most davis cup odds, the fact remains that tennis can be as unpredictable as any other sport and the French team will be hoping that Tsonga and Benneteaus’ replacements will fail to show that they can step up to the top tier of Davis Cup tennis so the visitors can snatch glory away from the fancied Serbs.

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