Okay, man, but today Ukrainians beat 11th Cottafava/Nicolai, earlier McHugh/Burnett, fought hard against Felipe/Renato and Hodges/Schubert at the tie-breaks.
Obviously, they have a lot to improve, BUT there is a fact that they start to playing tournaments only 2 months ago when other teams start their seasons in March. Now they can qualify for first ever WCh and move in WR, with possible career high 21st next week. By the way, there is some chance that Popov/Reznik can qualify, and I can belive in that, because they trained abroad with good coaches from Germany or Brazil. Another possible strenght is height (Popov is 1.88 and Ed is 2.07), so we can imagine scenario when chemistry between this two can work - today is the example of it.