Taylor Fritz, Ben Shelton to lead United States Davis Cup team against Czechia in September

The United States Davis Cup team will not lack firepower for it's bout against Czechia on September 12-13, as the Americans will feature their top-ranked players.

USTA and U.S. Davis Cup Captain Bob Bryan announced his player list on Wednesday, as the United States battles Czechia in the Davis Cup Qualifying second round tie. The event is scheduled to be held at at the Delray Beach Tennis Center in Delray Beach, Florida.

All four top American singles players have been announced for the tie, with World No.4 Taylor Fritz, No.6 Ben Shelton, No.14 Frances Tiafoe and No.16 Tommy Paul all named to compete. Conversely, the Czech team will feature World No.17 Jakub Mensik, No.24 Tomas Machac, No.26 Jiri Lehecka, doubles No.36 Adam Pavlasek and 19-year old Petr Brunclik.

The showdown is a best-of-five match series that starts with two singles matches starting at 6p.m. on Friday, September 12, before continuing with a doubles match and two more singles matches beginning at 2p.m. on Saturday, September 13. The first team to win three matches in the qualifying round will advance to the eight-nation Davis Cup Final 8 to compete for this year’s championship November 18-23 in Bologna, Italy.

As the highest-ranked American in his team, Fritz will be faced with a lot of responsibility to ensure the United States progresses. The California native made his Davis Cup debut in 2019, and has a 7-3 record in singles competition over 10 ties played at the event. Furthermore, Fritz has won two ATP titles this season, in addition to accumulating an impressive 36-14 match-win record this year.

Shelton is coming off the biggest title of his career, after winning his maiden ATP Masters 1000 trophy in Canada last week. The Atlanta native reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon this year, and has a 32-16 match-win record.

Tiafoe made his Davis Cup debut in 2018 and is a two-time US Open semifinalist. The World No.14 reached the quarterfinals at this year's French Open, and often plays some of his best tennis at Delray Beach, where he is a previous champion.

Paul has competed in 10 Davis Cup matches after making his debut in 2020. The World No.16 has a 5-3 match-win record at the multinational event, and reached the quarterfinals at both the Australian Open and French Open this year.