Davis Cup Winners by Decade - 2000s Quiz

Answer: Spain

Spain first competed in the Davis Cup in 1921 - when it was still known as the International Lawn Tennis Challenge. It took a further 79 years before they were able to win the tournament for the first time.

The locations of Davis Cup matches are chosen by one of the two sides competing - so it isn't that unlikely that one side will get to play all of their matches at home or be forced to play all of them on enemy territory. In general, each time two sides meet they take it turns to choose the venue. Obviously they will normally pick somewhere in their own country to make the most of home advantage and they can also pick the type of court (indoor or outdoor) and the surface (usually hard court, clay, grass or carpet) on which the matches are played.

Answer: France

France took their first Davis Cup win in 1927 after having finished as the runner-up for the previous two years. It proved to be the first in a period of French domination of the tournament as they recorded six consecutive wins before finally being defeated again by Great Britain in 1933. They didn't win again until the 1990s and their ninth Davis Cup win came at the expense of Australia in the 2001 final.

France's route to the 2001 Davis Cup final involved beating Belgium in Ghent, Switzerland in Neuchatel and the Netherlands in Rotterdam before they had to travel all the way to Melbourne for the final.

Answer: Russia

The 2000 US Open champion was the Russian tennis star Marat Safin. He also won the Australian Open title in 2005 and was the world number one on three separate occasions between November 2000 and April 2001.

In 2002 he helped his country to its first Davis Cup victory by defeating France's Paul-Henri Mathieu in his first singles rubber and Sebastian Grosjean in his second. He also paired up with Yevgeny Kafelnikov and suffered a close five-set defeat in the doubles rubber - but that loss didn't matter when their team-mate Mikhail Youzhny won the deciding singles rubber to secure a 3-2 victory.

Answer: Australia

The four Grand Slam events in tennis are the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. The Davis Cup final in 2003 was held at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne Park - the main court used for the Australian Open.

The Australian team consisted of Lleyton Hewitt (the then recent US Open and Wimbledon Champion and former world number one), Mark Philippoussis (noted for being one of the fastest servers in the history of the sport) and doubles specialists Wayne Arthurs and Todd Woodbridge (one half of the enormously successful "Woodies"). They defeated Spain 3-1 in the final to record the country's 28th Davis Cup victory.

Answer: Spain

Spain were also on home soil for their second Davis Cup victory as the 2004 final was played on a clay court in Seville. The choice of clay made perfect sense for the Spanish as they had both the former French Open champion (and former world number one) Carlos Moya and the future multiple French Open champion Rafael Nadal in their team.

Their opponents, the United States, had been seeking their 32nd Davis Cup title and first since 1995. However, they had to settle for the runner-up spot after Spain took an unassailable 3-1 lead after the first four rubbers - Mardy Fish's win over Tommy Robredo to reduce the deficit to 3-2 was probably of little consolation.

Answer: Croatia

In 2005 most of the top seeded teams lost in the first round or the quarter-final stage of the Davis Cup. Unseeded Croatia and Slovakia beat the fifth and sixth seeds (Russia and Argentina) respectively to earn the right to challenge for their first Davis Cup win.

The tie took place in Bratislava, Slovakia but it was the Croatian team of Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic who emerged triumphant. They won one singles rubber each and collectively defeated the Slovakian pair in the doubles rubber.

Answer: Russia

Russia chose to host the 2006 Davis Cup Final in the Olympic Stadium in Moscow, one of the venues used during the 1980 Summer Olympic Games. Their opponents on this occasion were Argentina, who took the home favourites to a deciding final rubber but were eventually defeated 3-2.

The key players in the match were Argentina's David Nalbandian - who had reached the semi-finals of both the Australian and French Opens earlier in the year - and Russia's Marat Safin - who was returning from injury. Despite being defeated by Nalbandian in their first singles rubber, Safin closed out the deciding final rubber against Jose Acasuso to clinch both his and Russia's second Davis Cup.

Answer: United States

The United States finally claimed their 32nd Davis Cup win when they defeated the reigning cup holders, Russia, in Portland in December 2007. The United States dominated the match and won the first three rubbers to secure the cup. However, as per the rules in place at the time, the final two dead rubbers were still played but as best-of-three rather than best-of-five set matches. Russia's Igor Andreev managed to win one of them to bring the final result to 4-1. This result was a turn-around from the Davis Cup semi-final between the same countries in 2006, which Russia had won 3-2.

The members of the United States team who took part in the match were 2003 US Open champion Andy Roddick, James Blake and the multiple doubles Grand Slam title winners Bob and Mike Bryan.

Answer: Spain

Spain's David Ferrer, Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco took on Argentina's David Nalbandian, Juan Martin del Potro, Agustin Calleri and Jose Acasuso for the 2008 Davis Cup in the city of Mar del a Plata, Argentina. The Spanish team won the contest 3-1 despite the fact that their star player, the Olympic gold medallist, reigning French Open and Wimbledon champion and world number one Rafael Nadal was unable to compete due to a knee injury.

While Spain took their third Davis Cup victory, Argentina recorded their third Davis Cup final defeat.

Answer: Spain

Spain took their fourth Davis Cup win in 2009 and in doing so became the first nation to successfully defend the cup for over ten years (Sweden were the previous team to win back-to-back titles in 1997 and 1998).

Rafael Nadal was able to take on a significant role in defeating the unseeded Czech Republic, winning his first rubber against Tomas Berdych 7-5, 6-0, 6-2 and the (dead) fourth rubber against Jan Hajek in straight sets. His team-mates on this occasion were the same men who took part in the 2008 Davis Cup final - Ferrer, Lopez and Verdasco.