Blake Joins Roddick, Bryans for Davis Cup

James Blake will join No. 3-ranked Andy Roddick and Australian Open doubles winners, Mike and Bob Bryan, for the upcoming first round of Davis Cup matches, featuring the United States against Romania.

The matches will be held Feb. 10-12 at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club at La Jolla, and are sold out.

The No. 2 singles spot was essentially the only open question mark for this first round, and Blake nudged ahead of Robby Ginepri and Taylor Dent by winning a tournament in Sydney, an Australian Open tune-up event.

“It was a tough decision,” said U.S. Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe on Tuesday on a conference call, officially announcing the team.

“Basically, the fact that James went 7-1 or 7-2, because he won the first event in Sydney, lost in Adelaide, but he had some solid wins. Robby, I quite honestly thought was going to play a lot better down there. That didn’t happen. But those guys are very close. We may need all of them at some point in the year.”

Though Blake stalled at the Australian Open, losing in the third round to Tommy Robredo of Spain, things were even worse for Dent and Ginepri. Dent lost in the first round and Ginepri went out in the second round against German qualifier Denis Gremelmayr after taking the first two sets and a 3-0 lead in the third.

Ginepri’s woes have continued; he lost Tuesday in the first round at Delray Beach, Fla.

The top two players on Romania’s nominated team are Victor Hanescu and Andrei Pavel. Hanescu reached the quarterfinals of the French Open last year, and Pavel has been ranked as high as No. 13 in the world in October 2004 but is now ranked 82nd.

Pavel lost in the second round of the Australian Open and Hanescu, ranked 40th, went out in the first round in Melbourne in five sets to Guillermo Coria of Argentina.

The court at La Jolla will be much faster, which should throw Hanescu out of his comfort zone.

Last year, the court at the Home Depot Center in Carson in the first-round loss against Croatia ended up playing slow, which not only benefited Ivan Ljubicic but worked against Andre Agassi.

“I have to take some responsibility for that, which is why I made an extra trip to go to La Jolla on my way to Australia to test the court, had them redo it to what I think is the right speed,” said McEnroe, who waited several hours and then practiced on it, retesting the court himself. “Hopefully that will work.

“I think it certainly was a wake-up call for all of us that we can lose a match at home. We hadn’t lost one since I’d been the captain until that match last year.”

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First-round matchups

Davis Cup pairings for Feb. 10-12. The U.S.-Romania matches are in La Jolla.

Austria vs. Croatia

* Argentina vs. Sweden

* Belarus vs. Spain

* Switzerland vs. Australia

* Germany vs. France

* Netherlands vs. Russia

* United States vs. Romania

* Chile vs. Slovak Republic