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Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek put defending champions Czech Republic into the Davis Cup final by beating Argentina’s Carlos Berlocq and Horacio Zeballos in the doubles yesterday. |
World number five Berdych and US Open doubles champion Stepanek defeated the Argentines 6-3, 6-4, 6-2, giving the Czechs an unassailable 3-0 lead in their semi-final and a place in their third final in five years. They will face either Canada or Serbia on November 15-17.
The Czechs’ all-time best doubles pairing with a 13-1 record were playing together for the first time this season and, after winning their singles matches on Friday, looked more at ease than the Argentines with the faster play on the hard court at Prague’s O2 Arena, in front of more than 11,000 fans.
“It feels great; this competition means a lot to us,” Stepanek said at the courtside after the match. “It is an honour to play in front of our home crowd, our home fans... We would like to keep that trophy because it’s beautiful.”
The Czech duo showed their experience in the first set, fighting off a break point to go up 4-3. They then broke the Argentines before serving out the set.
The second set played out similarly before the Czechs were able to break Berlocq’s serve for the second time to go up 4-3. The Argentine pair got back to 5-4 but Berdych served well and finished off the set with a smash.
Berdych, the Czechs’ top player, broke Zeballos in the third set to go up 3-2
when he fired a forehand winner from
the baseline that made Berlocq step out of the way.
The Czechs never looked back and Berdych sent the team through to the final on his first match ball. “We played a great game,” Berdych said. “Everything was in the right place today. We didn’t drop a serve. We were taking our chances.”
The South Americans were without their top player, world number seven Juan Martin Del Potro, and their best doubles player, David Nalbandian, who underwent shoulder surgery in May.
Nadal-Lopez win
In Madrid, Spain secured their place in the Davis Cup’s elite World Group when Rafa Nadal teamed up with Marc Lopez to beat Sergiy Stakhovsky and Denis Molchanov of Ukraine 6-2, 6-7, 6-3, 6-4 in their playoff yesterday.
Victory for the Spanish pair on the red clay at the Magic Box arena gave them an unassailable 3-0 lead in the best-of-five tie following Friday’s singles wins for Nadal and Fernando Verdasco.
Ukraine, whose highest-ranked player is number 40 Alexandr Dolgopolov, were clear underdogs against a team featuring world number two Nadal, who thrashed Stakhovsky on Friday four days after winning a second US Open crown in New York.
Stakhovsky and Molchanov battled back impressively to take the second set on Saturday but the latter appeared to be suffering from a left thigh problem from the third set onwards and Nadal and Lopez took full advantage.
They grabbed the crucial break in the seventh game of the fourth set on the Molchanov serve and went on to clinch victory on their first matchpoint when a Stakhovsky service return drifted wide from Nadal’s delivery.
“We had the match under control but at the start of the second set I had a bit of a slump,” Nadal said in an interview with Spanish television broadcaster Teledeporte. “But we got the breaks in the third and fourth sets at the right moment and were able to finish the match off,” added the 27-year-old. “We are still in the World Group and I think that a country with so many players in the top 100 deserves it.”
Nadal has shown little sign of fatigue on his return to Davis Cup action after beating top-ranked Novak Djokovic at Flushing Meadows to claim his 13th grand slam singles crown.
The Mallorcan, who had only two days to make the switch from hard court to clay, has not played in the competition since helping Spain to victory against Argentina in the 2011 final in Seville, their third triumph in four years and fifth overall.
Spain were in the playoffs after falling to Milos Raonic’s Canada in the first round in Vancouver in February when Nadal, who had just returned from a seven-month injury layoff, did not feature.