DAVIS CUP PREVIEW: KOREA, REP. VS ARGENTINA

An all-change Argentina will face a Korea side who have both home and court-surface advantage at Busan’s Gijang Gymnasium in the Davis Cup Qualifiers 1st Round this weekend.

Korea Republic Davis Cup team when they qualified for the Finals in 2023. Only two players remain from that side - Kwon (left) and Nam (second from right).

Argentina fell at the quarterfinal stage to Germany last November when Tomas Martin Etcheverry and Francisco Cerundulo played the singles rubbers and Andreas Molteni and Horacia Zeballos the doubles, with Etcheverry picking up the only win.

None are available for Busan in view of the inconveniently timed Argentina Open. The ATP 250 event held in Buenos Aires starts the following Monday and is a priority for many Argentine players. This leaves Captain Javier Frana to pick a side entirely comprised of Davis Cup newcomers to represent the 2016 Champions. That makes it a tricky tie to call as while Argentina still enjoys a big ranking advantage, those numbers don’t really tell the whole story. Argentina may not have any Davis Cup experience, but they are not exactly callow youths either.

Thiago Agustin Tirante heads the line up for the visitors. The 24-year-old sits at a career high of No. 95 in singles and made it to the second round of the Australian Open last month, defeating Aleksandar Vukic before falling to Tommy Paul. That was his second time in the Round 2 of a Slam – having previously achieved the same at Roland Garros in 2003 – and his most significant achievement on a hard court. Tirante’s most recent action was a quarterfinal defeat to Mattia Bellucci in the Manama Challenger last Friday.

Marco Trungelliti is an ATP Challenger Tour veteran who could finally make his Davis Cup debut at the age of 36. Trungelliti has never been inside the top 100, but he has appeared at all of the Grand Slams, making the second round on three occasions at Roland Garros and once apiece in Melbourne and New York.

Juan Pablo Ficovich is another veteran who has hovered just outside the top 100 without quite managing to break in and can provide another singles option while Federico Agustin Gomez seems the most likely candidate to partner doubles-specialist Guido Andreozzi.

Match fitness will be key for the Koreans, who reached this stage with an excellent 3-1 victory over Kazakhstan outdoors in Chuncheon last September and

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The return of Chung Hyeon to regular tennis after a long absence has been a story of grit and determination. He remains a very dangerous opponent on any given day, but his body hasn’t allowed him to get the momentum and the results to propel him back to a ranking fitting his ability.

Chung has begun 2026 playing Challengers in Thailand and Vietnam, beating Ryan Peniston in Phan Thiet before falling to Robin Bertrand in the round of 16. He was eliminated at the first hurdle in a second Challenger at the same venue last week by Corentin Denolly. In his last Davis Cup outing, Chung defeated Dmitry Popko to secure Korea’s 3-1 victory over Kazakhstan.

Kwon Soon-woo is currently performing his mandatory military service, but that hasn’t stopped the two-time ATP 250 winner from making regular appearances at Challenger level across Asia. In January he came through qualifiers to win the first of the consecutive Phan Thiet Challengers, defeating Ilia Simikin in the final and without having dropped a set the entire week. That run lifted him back into the Korean No. 1 spot in the singles rankings and, if he can bring that form to Gijang, he can be a danger to any of the visitors.

Shin San-hui is the Korean No. 2 in singles in terms of ranking. He got through to the second round at Phan Thiet last week before, just like Gomez did a round earlier, being handily beaten by Nikolai Barsukov.

Doubles is Korea’s banker with the pairing of Nam Ji-sung and Park Ui-sung one of the best around at Challenger level and coming fresh from victory at Phan Thiet last week. In their last Davis Cup outing together, they comfortably dispatched Alexander Shevchenko and Timofei Skatov and the hosts will be looking for a similar effort against Argentina.

Tennis has been having a moment in terms of popularity in Korea. The WTA 500 in Seoul (about to be downgraded to a 250 again) last September attracted big crowds as did a men’s Challenger event in late October. Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner played a sold-out exhibition in Incheon in January, with reports suggesting each earned a cool $2 million before boarding a private jet to Melbourne.

Seoul in the autumn is different to Gijang Gymnasium in early February, though a glance at ticket site Interpark suggests sales have been good. While owned by the city of Busan, the arena lies by a highway halfway to the neighboring city of Ulsan.