Daniel Altmaier overcomes nerves to kick off with a win
When Zverev announced last month that he would not be heading to the Davis Cup finals, having played the last two years in the qualifiers, Germany had their nominations clear albeit without their talisman.
That is not to take away from Altmaier and Struff, who more than proved themselves worthy in the quarter-final.
It was the former up first, the 26-year-old coming up against the youngster Diallo in the opening match of the tie. Altmaier dispatched his opponent calmly to set his teammate up nicely to finish off the job.
He put in a composed performance, even if the man from North-Rhine Westphalia did not feel like that.
“Definitely the nerves were a lot,” Altmaier admitted after the match in his press conference. “I [was] saying to the captain [Michael Kohlmann] in the morning when I was warming up I was really nervous, for coming up to the match, which I guess helps me a lot to communicate this openly, to [not] hide away my nerves.
“I have been really open with that, and I guess that helped me a lot to get into the match and just accept the way I feel, which is completely normal being in this position.”