Novak Djokovic brushed aside Dominik Hrbaty and Janko Tipsarevic rallied.
September 20th, 2008 Posted in Tennis newsNovak Djokovic brushed aside Dominik Hrbaty and Janko Tipsarevic rallied. From two sets down to beat Lukas Lacko Friday and give Serbia a 2-0 lead over Slovakia in the Davis Cup World Group playoff.
Djokovic needed just over two hours to win 6-2, 6-4, 6-3 on the indoor hardcourt at Bratislava’s Sibamac Arena, while Tipsarevic prevailed over his 240th-ranked opponent 6-7 (3), 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5), 8-6 in a match that took 4 hours and 18 minutes.
Djokovic broke Hrbaty to take a 4-2 lead in the first set and again in the eighth game after Hrbaty double-faulted.
In the second set, Djokovic raced to a 3-0 lead before allowing the Slovak Davis Cup veteran to break back in the ninth game. However, Hrbaty then lost his serve again to give the Australian Open champion the set.
Djokovic, who lost to Roger Federer in the U.S. Open semifinals, again dropped his serve in the third game of the third set but rallied to break Hrbaty twice to clinch the match.
In a back-and-forth match, Tipsarevic got the decisive break in the 13th game of the fifth set, and went on to convert his fourth match point in the following game.
In Saturday’s doubles, Michal Mertinak will team up with Filip Polasek to face Djokovic and Nenad Zimonjic.
The playoff winner qualifies for the elite 16-team World Group, while the loser drops into a regional zone.
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Frustrated Federer puts Swiss up 2-0 in Davis Cup.
Roger Federer showed some rare frustration Friday, requesting a change of line judges before going on to beat Belgium’s Kristof Vliegen 7-6 (1), 6-4, 6-2 to give Switzerland a 2-0 lead in a Davis Cup World Group playoff.
Upset by a baseline call that led to him lose serve and trail 2-0 in the second set, Federer walked to his chair and called for match referee Norbert Peick to change the line judges.
“It was an annoying call for me and I just asked him to change them, that’s all I did,” the Swiss star said. “Who knows, maybe I overreacted, but I was so irritated by the call because for me it was such an obvious call.”
The team of nine officials was kept in place before being removed at a change of ends when the U.S. Open champion trailed 4-1. They left the indoor arena to a chorus of boos from a partisan Swiss crowd.
Earlier, Stanislas Wawrinka – who won Olympic gold with Federer in men’s doubles in Beijing last month – beat Steve Darcis 6-7 (3), 6-1, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 in a four-hour match.
The 27-year-old Federer said there were also questionable line calls in the opening singles match.
“Maybe I came into the match already a bit aggravated,” he said. “I know it’s not easy for a linesman. I wouldn’t want to be one myself.”
After Federer’s initial complaint, the 95th-ranked Vliegen also showed his displeasure with calls that went against him in the three games before the officials departed.
“If Roger himself is complaining about the people, with the umpire and the line umpires … that is a really good sign to me that I was not the only one,” Vliegen said.
Federer was making his first appearance of the year before Swiss fans and dominated the first-set tiebreaker, clinching it with an ace.
After the new line judges were brought on, Federer won the next five games to take the second set.
He broke the 26-year-old Belgian’s serve to open the third set and was never threatened as he closed out the match. He improved his career record in Davis Cup singles to 25-6.
The ninth-ranked Wawrinka, playing in his hometown, got an early break in the first set in front of a noisy, sellout of 6,400 before Darcis rallied and easily won the tiebreaker.
But Wawrinka bounced back with three breaks in the second set, and broke again in the eighth game of the third after No. 58 Darcis had double-faulted at deuce.
Darcis then saved all five break points in the fourth set to level the match, but Wawrinka raced to a 4-0 lead in the decider.
The Swiss pair are scheduled to revive their Olympic partnership in Saturday’s doubles rubber against Xavier Malisse and Olivier Rochus, who won the 2004 French Open.
“We will see after tonight,” Wawrinka said. “We are going to talk with Roger and the rest of the team to see what we are going to do tomorrow.”
