By SABC Sport
6th February 2023
Croatia, the top-ranked team in the Nations Rankings, overcame the absence of Marin Cilic to secure their place in the Finals with a 3-1 win over Austria.
Borna Coric defeated Dennis Novak 6-3, 7-5 before his namesake Borna Gojo upset Dominic Thiem 6-3, 7-6 (2).
The Austrians kept their hopes alive with victory in the doubles match, but Coric hit back to beat Thiem 7-6 (3), 6-2 to seal Croatia's place in the Finals.
A Novak Djokovic-less Serbia advanced with a comfortable 4-0 victory over Norway, with Djokovic taking to social media to congratulate his countrymen for the achievement with a bunch of happy emojis.
With the prospect of Djokovic joining them for the Finals, Serbia feel confident they are major contenders.
"With Novak, if he is in the team for the next ties, I think we have a big chance to go far. That is our goal, to go for the title," Serbia's Nikola Cacic told the ATP.
A close contest between 2017 champions France and Hungary went down to the wire before Ugo Humbert beat Fabian Marozsan 6-3, 6-3 in the decider to hand the French a 3-2 victory.
Switzerland and Germany went toe-to-toe in a highly anticipated clash, which ultimately went the way of the Swiss after Marc-Andrea Huesler stunned Alexander Zverev 6-2, 7-6 (4) to level the tie at 2-2.
That gave Stan Wawrinka the opportunity to bounce back from an earlier defeat to Zverev by sealing the tie for his country with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 victory over Daniel Altmaier.
Great Britain booked their place in the finals after defeating Colombia 3-1, with Cameron Norrie's two victories against Nicolas Barrientos and Nicolas Meija proving vital to the result.
South Korea arguably caused the biggest upset as they knocked out Belgium 3-2 after coming from 0-2 down.
The doubles pair of Nam Ji-sung and Song Ming-kyu began the fightback after beating Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen 7-6(3) 7-6(5), before Kwon Soon-woo levelled the tie at 2-2 by stunning David Goffin 3-6 6-1 6-3.
World number 240 Hong Seong-chan then sealed the tie with a 6-3 7-6 (4) win over Zizou Bergs in the deciding rubber.
Finland also upset Argentina 3-1 after Emil Ruusuvuori won both of his singles matches against Pedro Cachin and Facundo Bagnis.
Others to advance included the Czech Republic and Chile, who beat Portugal and Kazakhstan respectively, and the United States and the Netherlands who both secured dominant 4-0 victories, the Americans dispatching Uzbekistan and the Netherlands dismissing Slovakia.