In a dramatic five-set match that lasted 3:37 hours, the Russian doubles team Dmitry Tursunov and Igor Kunitsyn today defeated David and Guillermo "Willy" Canas 6-2, 6-1, 6-7(9), 4-6, 8-6.
The tie now stands at 2-1 Argentina before the last two singles matches tomorrow.
Although Argentine captain Alberto Mancini initially called an appearance by David in doubles unlikely, already yesterday evening rumours emerged that David and not Agustin Calleri would play today's doubles match alongside Willy Canas. I assume that Mancini asked David if he felt fit enough and wanted to play. And they must've surely thought that this change in the line-up would increase their chances of closing the tie already on Saturday.
But now, after the long and very emotional match today the question is whether it really was such a good idea to let David play doubles. After all, he now has a live rubber singles match ahead of him tomorrow.
A brief summary...
The first two sets were extremely one-sided and it took the Russian team less than an hour to win them. David and Willy, who've played only one doubles match together since the Davis Cup quarter final in April, were confused by the Russians' tactics of Kunitsyn staying back at all times and Tursunov alone covering the net. Both David and Willy had considerable difficulties holding serve and in the second set neither of them managed to do so even once (the only game they won was a break against Kunitsyn).
In the third set however, David and Willy started to play better and managed to establish a 4-1 lead. But the Russians broke back to make it 4-3. At 5-4, David and Willy had a set point on Kunitsyn's serve but at that moment, an unlucky netcord robbed them of their chance. Eventually, the set went to a tiebreak. The Russians quickly went up 6-3 and had 3 match points, the first two of which on Kunitsyn's serve. But a forehand winner from Willy, a backhand on the line from David and then finally a poor return from Tursunov kept the Argentine team in play. After that, David & Willy squandered 3 set points until finally a volley down the middle from David won Argentina the third set.
In the fourth set, David and Willy played their best tennis of the match and soon led by a double break. At 5-2, David served for the set and got broken. But he made up for it with some good play in the next game, where they managed to break Tursunov and take the fourth.
Early in the fifth set a break of the Kunitsyn serve gave David & Willy a 3-1 lead but it was short-lived as the Russians broke straight back against Willy. At 3-3, David played a horrible service game, culminating in two double faults in a row that gave the Russians first break point and then the break and the 4-3 lead. But this time, David and Willy broke straight back to level the score at 4-4. They stayed on serve until 6-6. And then it was Willy who got broken. I couldn't see how exactly it happened because the stream I was using chose that particular moment to break down on me. When it was working again, Tursunov was already serving for the match and it took merely a minute or two until he sealed the victory with a service winner.
Apropos Dmitry Tursunov - I wouldn't be surprised if Russia's captain Tarpishev lets him play tomorrow, and not Davydenko. Tursunov really appeared to be in fine form today...
But the real question is: will David be, tomorrow?
Post-match audio interview with David and Willy.
More pics...
5 comments:
This is, of course, disappointing for David. However, I feel sure he'll find the fight needed to overcome his Russian opponent tomorrow, whether it's Davydenko or Tursunov.
Vamos!
Nice summary. The Russians' tactic of staying back and hitting penetrating shots in the first two sets reminded me of the 2006 final where they sort of did the same thing. The Russians played well in the first two sets although Kunitsyn's serve looked vulnerable. Canas' groundstrokes looked really weak in the first two sets. The quality of the match was poor really although the drama was good. Strangely at times the crowd were a bit quiet in the fourth and fifth sets.
I'm hoping that Davydenko plays tomorrow, not Tursunov but I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being Tursunov.
Thanks. True, Willy Canas started poorly but in the later stages of the match I thought he was the more reliable of the two. David showed some brief flashes of brilliance but missed far too many easy shots, whether from the baseline or at the net. And his serve.... well. Maybe that played a part in "confusing" the crowd.
As for today, I'm hoping for Davydenko too, who'd probably be easier for David, given the match record and Davydenko's recent lack of form. - But that's exactly why I'm expecting Tursunov.
I saw the only match David played against him so far (RG '06, David won in five after coming back from two sets down). Judging by that match and the way Tursunov cruised through all of his service games yesterday (except one), I'm thinking that it wouldn't be a good match-up for David at all...
Yeah, the flashes of brilliance, I'm thinking specifically of the 5-4 game in the third set where they had numerous opportunities to take the third set but I think on three occasions, David missed a makeable forehand.
I also thought Canas was the better player, especially in the third set. They were probably about the same in the fourth and fifth sets. By the way, in that game you didn't see, it was Canas's turn to serve 2 DFs to lose his serve.
As for today's match against Davydenko, I have written my match summary on MTF. I'll copy and paste it here. It sucks that a lot of people weren't able to watch it because of the lack of live stream. I watched it on a pay stream. It wasn't really a great match quality-wise, but obviously it was still well worth watching since you know, it's not often we see David play these sorts of matches.
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Nalbandian played a great first set. It looked like he was on fire for a while, when he was about to go up a double break then he was a bit sloppy and had to play some clutch points to hold the next game. This part of the match was great to watch. Davydenko was being a bit passive at this point though playing into his hands. The momentum was all going his way when he went up an early break in the second set, and he was up 40-0 in the second game then got a bit complacent and that's when Davydenko started playing a lot better.
It looked like after Nalbandian lost that break that he wasn't able to play with the same amount of adrenaline and was pacing himself more. Davydenko was on fire for about three or so games in the second set while Nalbandian started to make more errors. In the game where Nalbandian got broken, he saved SO many break points with clutch serves (to counter Davydenko's very good play) but eventually he missed a forehand down-the-line by just a little bit.
The third set was where Nalbandian really started to look tired. He started to dig the ball back more, instead of going for it, mainly because he was not getting in position to do anything with it and he was making a lot of errors also.
Davydenko choked serving for the set, then there was a super long game at 5-5 on Nalbandian's serve, where he got TWO letcords which helped him hold serve, as well as Davydenko making some very easy errors. He had a slight chance on Davydenko's serve in the following game, but he could not win a point that was not from a Davydenko error. Davydenko didn't give much away in the tie-break, so he won it. It was a bit hard to watch the third set, because it seemed to be entirely dependent on Davydenko's level of play. It was a good effort though, although it never looked like he was going to win the match at this point unless if Davydenko played really poorly.
In the fourth set, it was pretty much what I expected would happen given that Nalbandian surely couldn't have thought he could have won it at that point and that Davydenko would be feeling more relaxed. Nalbandian tried to go for his shots a bit more, but made a lot of errors.
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I can't imagine what I feel like if Del Potro loses against Andreev, so that better not happen!
Thanks for the summary. I'm off to write my own now and a new entry. Never easy after matches like this one...
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