Davis Cup – Latest Updates and Results (02/11/12)

Written by: Staff on 11th February 2012

Davis Cup - Latest Updates and Results (02/11/12)

Go Soeda of Japan in action against Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia during their semi final match of the Chennai Open 2012 tennis tournament in Chennai, India, 07 January 2012. Janko Tipsarevic won 6-1 and 6-4 to move into the Chennai Open 2012 singles final. EPA/NATHAN G |

For Japan, day one was the day the world turned upside down. The expectation was that things would be tied at 1-1 after the first two matches. And they are. But the path there was, to say the least, odd. The Japanese started out with a big surprise as Go Soeda edged Croatia’s Ivan Dodig 6-7 3-6 6-4 6-3 7-5 — the first-ever World Group win for a Japanese player. That seemed to put the Japanese in great shape, since Kei Nishikori was up next. But Nishikori looked very bad against Ivo Karlovic, losing 6-4 6-4 6-3. Karlovic had 18 aces, and won 85% of first serve points; Nishikori never even earned a break point. It feels as if they will likely split the reverse singles also, so the doubles suddenly looms very large. It will be interesting to see who plays….

The loss of Philipp Kohlschreiber is looking costly for Germany. His replacement, Philipp Petzschner, wasn’t really competitive against Argentina’s Juan Monaco. Monaco scored the first point of the tie 6-3 6-3 6-3. David Nalbandian then went into a brief funk against Florian Mayer, but it didn’t cost Argentina much; he won 2-6 6-0 6-1 7-6, and Argentina is up 2-0.

Sweden is paying an even higher price than Germany for the loss of a key player. Without Robin Soderling, their only real chance is in doubles. In singles, they’re being swamped. Janko Tipsarevic opened the tie with a 6-3 6-3 6-4 win over Filip Prpic. That turned things over to Viktor Troicki, who is celebrating his twenty-sixth birthday. Troicki perhaps had been celebrating a little too hard; he managed to lose a set to Michael Ryderstedt. But he won enough; 6-4 6-3 5-7 6-3, and Serbia is one win away from the quarterfinal.

Mardy Fish is ranked well above Stanislas Wawrinka, but Wawrinka likes clay and Fish does not. It looked like a recipe for trouble for the Americans. But Fish came through 6-2 4-6 4-6 6-1 9-7 to give the Americans a big boost. Of course, that left it to John Isner to face Roger Federer. That’s when it really got crazy. Isner stunned Federer 4-6 6-3 7-6 6-2. On clay! He had only 14 aces — but he was broken only once, and he broke three times.

Making life even more interesting is the fact that the Americans will have a fresh doubles team in Bryan/Harrison, while the Swiss are supposed to play Federer/Wawrinka. And Wawrinka was on the court for four hours and 26 minutes, and while Federer was out there for only about half that, he didn’t look like himself. From extreme underdogs the Americans now look like obvious favorites.

Igor Kunitsyn continues to give Jurgen Melzer trouble — but not enough trouble. Not quite. Melzer beat Kunitsyn for the first time, 6-2 6-7 6-4 3-6 6-1, to put Austria up 1-0 on Russia. Of course, that turned the tie Andreas Haider-Maurer. The good news is, Haider-Maurer was facing Davis Cup rookie Alex Bogomolov Jr. Bogomolov added to the day’s roll of surprises by losing to Haider-Maurer 6-1 6-4 6-7 6-2. So Austria is up 2-0, and they have the stronger doubles team.

The closest thing to a surprise in the tie between Spain and Kazakhstan is how long it took. Juan Carlos Ferrero managed to win the opener against Mikhail Kukushkin, but the score was 6-1 4-6 7-6 4-6 6-4. The second match also took a while, but Nicolas Almagro put Spain up 2-0 by beating slumping Andrei Golubev 6-3 4-6 6-1 6-1.

Long first matches seemed to be the order of the day. Radek Stepanek produced the fifth five-setter of the weekend, edging Andreas Seppi 4-6 6-4 6-3 3-6 6-3 to put the Czechs up 1-0 on Italy. Which feels pretty close to decisive, because it meant that the Czechs needed only to have Tomas Berdych win his two matches to advance. Berdych followed the pattern of the day in taking longer than expected, but he managed to beat Simone Bolelli 6-3 4-6 7-5 6-2. So the Czechs are up 2-0.

Canada, at least, went against the long-first-match trend. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga opened things for France by thumping Vasek Pospisil 6-1 6-3 6-3. Of course, the real question was the second match: How would Milos Raonic’s serve stand up against Julien Benneteau’s return — and vice versa? We’ll let you know in our next edition.

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