Britain kept their hopes alive without Andy Murray as Kyle Edmund’s straight-sets victory over Dusan Lajovic earned the defending champions an unassailable 3-1 lead over Serbia.
Advertisement
Great stuff. And given how well Edmund, Murray and Britain’s doubles players are performing right now, it’s hard NOT to believe that Britain are on course to defend the Davis Cup title they won a year ago…
Murray decided not to play a few days after his second Wimbledon title but cheered the team on from the sidelines.
Andy Murray has backed Kyle Edmund to go a long way in the game after his Davis Cup heroics against Serbia.
Lajovic, the world No 81, took full advantage by holding his own serve and then nearly broke Edmund for a second time when he twice held set points in the long 12th game.
The 26-year-old Serbian was also affected by weather conditions that were unusual for this time of the year for Belgrade – cloudy, foggy and cold.
Krajinovic had replaced Janko Tipsarevic, who was easily defeated by Kyle Edmund 6-3, 6-4, 6-0 in the first singles rubber on Friday.
Lajovic then led 4-2 in the third set tie-break but Edmund again used his forehand to fight back and brought up his first match point at 5-6.
Wimbledon doubles champions Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert had beaten Lukas Rosol and Radek Stepanek 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 on Saturday to give France a 2-1 lead.
Del Potro and Pella played out the match of the day in the Davis Cup on Saturday, winning a gruelling five-set encounter.
Britain advanced to the Davis Cup semifinals after having defeated Serbia in Belgrade.
Serbia played without top-ranked Novak Djokovic and the country’s No. 2 Viktor Troicki.
It was the first moment of crisis for Edmund, who had to hold his service at 5-6 to force a third set tiebreak.
Zimonjic’s partner, Krajinovic, playing his first Davis Cup doubles, then dropped his serve at the start of the fourth and the Britons never let the advantage slip.
Argentina have now made the semi-finals 11 times in the last 15 years.
For Inglot meanwhile it was a first victory on court for the team after being part of the victorious Davis Cup squad a year ago. He’s got a huge forehand; it’s going to be talked about a lot.
“But I really had to work hard to win today”.
Delbonis withstood a fightback from Italy’s Fabio Fognini in the fourth rubber to win 6-4 7-5 3-6 7-5 in just over three and a half hours in Pesaro. The reverse singles are Sunday.
Advertisement
In their quest for a first Davis Cup title since 2001, France will face Croatia in the other semi-final after the Croatians rallied from an 0-2 deficit to oust the U.S. 3-2. The home nation will have to look back to 1928 for its only win over Argentina-which, it so happens, was played on clay in Torquay. I think it’ll be a good match, it should be high level.
