Davis Cup: Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic and Novak Djokovic’s performance in semi-finals
Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia defeated Radek Stepanek of Czech Republic on Sunday and has taken Serbia into first Davis Cup final with 3-2 victory.
Tipsarevic’s 6-0, 7-6 (6), 6-4 got support when Novak Djokovic pushed Serbia back into the match by defeating Tomas Berdych 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 to tie the best of five series at 2-2.
The boisterous crowd played a significant role, by boosting Serbia’s confidence and may be this was exactly what they needed. The crowd was really cooperative throughout the match as it got Serbia out of an impossible situation, especially when Djokovic
was playing.
Djokovic’s team is 4-0 at home. May be this statement is true now that, whoever comes to Belgrade won’t be the favourite.
Niki Pilic, who took Germany and Croatia to Davis Cup titles and now advises Serbia, said he did not sign up “to win the first round”. The whole nation including Niki Pilic believes in these guys, they are very motivated and determined to play for their
country. Achieving three points in the final will be like climbing Mt. Everest but it was not an easy task winning both matches, especially when both the players were under pressure.
After winning his third match point, the Serbian players hugged each other and then dropped to the floor and made a circle around their Serbian flag.
Tipsarevic justified his ranking and proved to be the best Serbian player after winning both of his single matches against last season’s runner-up team. He was the hero of this match.
“I don’t think he made one mistake in the first but I should have won the second”, Stepanek said. “He wasn’t as sharp and, had I won it, it would have been a different story. I did my best, I left everything on the court and I lost against a guy who played
better”.
According to match circumstances Tipsarevic might have been in trouble if he had to play on. It might have been pretty risky, if it went to the fourth or fifth round because he was getting tired.
Djokovic, who is the U.S. Open 2010 runner-up, had a pathetic start but thanks to the support of his hometown crowd of 15,000 at Belgrade Arena that even used vuvuzelas to boost up their team. Unfortunately, he dropped his serve in the seventh game to lose
the first set.
Djokovic who is the world’s No. 2 tennis player, missed his opening singles on Friday because he was still tired from Monday’s U.S. Open final against Rafael Nadal and only returned to the Serbian capital from New York two days before the match.
He came back to Serbia to play doubles on Saturday in a very tiring effort and that left Serbia struggling 2-1 and therefore the Serbian had to beat Berdych to keep Serbia’s hopes alive.
The No. 2 ranked came into the match with a 2-1 career edge over Berdych but the seventh ranked Czech had won their Wimbledon semi-finals. But unfortunately Berdych lost the final to Nadal.
There were two tough moments for the Serbia in the second set especially, when Djokovic was 30-0 down before recovering from a 3-2 lead. The second tough moment was when Djokovic tried to reach a smash from Berdych but slipped and fell heavily. He required
an urgent medical break but returned with a bandage on his right knee.
Fortunately, the Serb appeared to have no problems, despite having only one break point as he continued the game. Berdych struggled by hitting a backhand into the net to go down 5-3 and Djokovic served out the set to level the match at 1-1.
“I felt sleepy in the first set but it didn’t last long. I woke up when I fell but fortunately I was not hurt. And I felt a volcano of energy coming from the fans”, Djokovic said.
In the upcoming Dec. 3-5 final, Serbia will face France, who has defeated Argentina 5-0 in the other semi-final.
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