Hrbaty earns semifinal appearance for Slovaks
Hrbaty earns semifinal appearance for Slovaks
Slovak Republic reached their first ever Davis Cup semifinal on Sunday when
Dominik Hrbaty clinched a winning 3-1 lead against the Netherlands in
Bratislava. Hrbaty dominated the first reverse singles against Peter Wessels,
leading 63 61 30 when the Dutchman pulled out with a rib injury. Slovak
Republic will now play Argentina at home in September after the South
Americans won away in Australia.
It was a limp ending to what had promised to be a grandstand final day of
tennis as Wessels succumbed to an old injury. Hrbaty, who was in fine form
over the tie and won both his singles matches, described the victory as the
second best result in team sports in his country’s short history.
"After ice hockey where Slovakia won the gold medal at the world championships,
this is the second biggest result in Slovakia," he said. "As far as publicity
is concerned, this is a great advantage for Slovakia because ice hockey is only
played in a few countries but tennis is played all over the world, even in
Africa and Asia, so everyone will know about this."
The beginning of the match was a tight affair with both players holding on to
their serves in the first six games. But when the Slovak broke his opponent in
the seventh game, the whole complexion of the match changed.
Wessels’s game disintegrated and he won only one more game before throwing in
the towel at two sets and 3-0 down.
Hrbaty will be expecting a much tougher challenge when Argentina come to
Bratislava in September, complete with former Grand Slam finalists Guillermo
Coria and David Nalbandian.
"Of course Argentina will be favourites," added Hrbaty. "But I think that we
have more togetherness. That is the main thing about our team. Also we will
be playing at home so we can choose the surface. But Argentina has many players
from the top 10 but I have played them before and managed to win so I think we
can win if we play our usual Davis Cup match."
Wessels was dejected after his defeat, blaming his poor form on the injury
sustained a fortnight before coming to Slovakia.
"Two weeks ago I slipped on the clay and fell on my back and bruised a rib,"
he said. "Since then it didn’t get a lot better but when I played tennis it
was ok. "After Friday it hurt very much and when I was at the net [Karol]
Beck hit me with a passing shot in that exact spot. I was very stiff after the
match and that’s why I didn’t play in the doubles and today it just got worse
and worse."
In the final dead rubber, Michal Mertinak defeated Melle Van Gemerden 46 63 64
to extend the Slovaks' winning margin to 4-1.
Copy provided by Reuters
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