The Argentine Davis Cup team is set to take on its Turkish counterpart on Saturday and Sunday, with a place at next year\u2019s Qualifiers at stake. The series will be hosted at the Ruca Che stadium in Neuqu\u00e9n.<\/p>\n
Argentina aims to defend its status among the Davis Cup elite, after losing 3-2 to South Korea in the first round of the 2026 Davis Cup Qualifiers, held in February in Busan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Davis Cup format has teams competing to climb the ladder into the end-of-year finals twice a year, with losers from the February window taking on winners from the series below in September. A win for Argentina means a return to the Qualifiers stage, while a loss will force them to defend a World Group I team status next February.<\/p>\n
Cer\u00fandolo looking forward to a loud stadium<\/p>\n
Team captain Javier Frana confirmed Francisco Cer\u00fandolo, Thiago Tirante, Mariano Navone, Guido Andreozzi, and Andr\u00e9s Molteni as the players to take on T\u00fcrkiye.<\/p>\n
Leading singles player Cer\u00fandolo is undoubtedly the star of the lot. The 28-year-old was coming off a rough patch of form, having won a single match since claiming his second title of the season at the Queen\u2019s ATP 500 tournament in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He picked up the slack at the US Open, where he reached the round of 16 to complete his best-ever performance at the last major of the year and became the world No. 23.<\/p>\n
Cer\u00fandolo weighed in on the importance of Argentina hosting the series, insisting it will be a key factor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ruca Che [stadium] looks great, it feels tight with the stands close by. I think that\u2019ll be good, you\u2019ll be able to really feel the support of all those fans,\u201d he said during the press conference ahead of the series.<\/p>\n
He went on to thank the fans who sold out the venue and said the team will \u201cgive it their all to reward them\u201d for it.<\/p>\n
Tirante weighs in on Korea defeat meaning<\/p>\n
Second singles player Tirante (52) had perhaps the opposite arc to Cer\u00fandolo, arriving at the US Open on the back of reaching the round of 16 and quarterfinal at the Toronto and Cincinnati Masters 1000 respectively \u2014 with a win over 24-time grand slam winner Novak Djokovic included \u2014 but fell in the first round to France\u2019s Adrian Mannarino.<\/p>\n
Regardless, the 25-year-old credited the series at Busan \u2014 in which he debuted as a Davis Cup player for Argentina \u2014\u00a0 as one of the moments that helped him mature in his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to take a lot of positives despite the defeat,\u201d he said during the press conference. \u201cIt made me grow up a lot as a person and a player; I started taking a lot more responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tirante said that representing his country made him \u201cenjoy tough moments more\u201d and \u201ctake a different outlook on life and on tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to look at how privileged you are for playing at that level. Sometimes you need a moment to touch your soul, your heart [to figure it out], and that was it for me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Navone (45) was another who made history in New York, becoming the first Argentine to beat Djokovic at a tennis major since 2005, ousting the Serb in the first round. He went on to fall to countryman Tom\u00e1s Etcheverry in the third round, but still completed his best outing in the last major of the season.<\/p>\n
Doubles stars ready<\/p>\n
Doubles duties in the series will be taken over by Andr\u00e9s Molteni and Guido Andreozzi. While the duo doesn\u2019t regularly play together on the ATP Tour, they played 21 matches as a pair on the professional circuit, posting a 16-5 record for a 76% win rate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Together, they claimed three ATP Challenger Tour titles across eight appearances: Caltanissetta in 2016, and Szczecin and Buenos Aires, both in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Molteni] and I go a long way back,\u201d said Andreozzi in the press conference. \u201cIt might take a while to understand each other perfectly on the court, but we\u2019re good friends so we\u2019ll get there with training.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Buenos Aires City player is enjoying the best season of his career in 2026. Alongside France\u2019s Manuel Guinard, he won the Indian Wells Masters 1000 title, reached the final of the Madrid Masters 1000, and reached a career-high 15th in the ATP doubles rankings.<\/p>\n
Molteni currently sits 61st in the ranking, fresh off reaching the US Open round of 16 alongside usual doubles partner M\u00e1ximo Gonz\u00e1lez.<\/p>\n
He praised the state of the Ruca Che Stadium, calling a court \u201cgreat and easy to adapt to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turkish underdogs<\/p>\n
T\u00fcrkiye arrives at the series as the clear underdog, not just because of playing away, but also fielding a team of players ranked well below the Argentine stars.<\/p>\n
The top-ranked and leading singles player is Mert Alkaya, currently the 296th in the ATP singles ranking. The 26-year-old is going through the best patch of his career, having recently reached the quarterfinals in ATP Challenger Tour-level tournaments like Astana and Segovia.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s joined by world No. 329 Yanki Erel, who\u2019ll be the second singles player, while Arda Azkara (205th doubles ranked) and Tuncay Duran (493) will feature in the doubles. 17-year-old Kaan Isik Kosaner completes the team.<\/p>\n
How to watch Argentina playing vs T\u00fcrkiye<\/p>\n
The series will consist of two singles games on Saturday, with the doubles and two extra singles matches on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If the series is settled after the doubles game (i.e. if a team wins all games to take a 3-0 lead), the set of extra singles will only be played if team captains agree to it.<\/p>\n
Cer\u00fandolo will open up action taking on Erel at 12 p.m. Argentina time. Shortly after that match is over, Tirante will take on Alkaya.<\/p>\n
Doubles with Molteni and Andreozzi facing off Azkara and Duran will start at 11 a.m. on Sunday, with Cer\u00fandolo taking on Alkaya and Tirante going off against Erel after that, if required or agreed to.<\/p>\n
The series will be broadcast live on sports cable TV channels TyC Sports and DSports, and can also be streamed via their respective digital TyC Sports Play and DGO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Argentine Davis Cup team is set to take on its Turkish counterpart on Saturday and Sunday, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[256258,25582,143724,101,118,256259,9130,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-777424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-argentina-davis-cup-team","tag-francisco-cerundolo","tag-mariano-navone","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-thiago-tirante","tag-turkiye","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}