Team Serbia triumphs over Team Sweden; seals its place in the semi-finals – Davis Cup 2011
Defending champions Team Serbia rose to the occasion by ousting the Swedes at their home ground, rounding off a 4-1 win altogether at the quarterfinals of the Davis Cup 2011.
The first two singles rubbers were an unassailable win for the Serbs even though they did not see the likes of Djokovic due to a sore knee. Janko Tipsarevic, who played instead Novak, was thrashing Eleskovic in first set 6-2 before
the latter retired at 0-1 in the second set. While Viktor Troicki, was on fire winning 6-3, 6-1, 6-7(6), 7-5 against Ryderstedt and thus winning the tiebreaker.
The doubles match was bestowed with the presence of world number one, none other than Djokovic along with Nenad Zimonjic, who were dumbfounded by the Swedish combo Simon Aspelin and Robert Lindstedt during the match, Losing 2 sets
and the tiebreaker recording 4-6, 6-7(5), 5-7 defeat.
The reverse singles rubbers that were played at the Halmstad Arena, Halmstad, Sweden on Sunday, were a blessing as Janko Tipsarevic and Viktor Troicki steered Serbia into a final 4-1 victory. Troicki’s reverse
singles match lasted only 68 minutes with 6-3, 4-6 on the scoreboard when Robert Lindstedt retired due to a sore right wrist. Janko’s match on the contrary lasted for more than two hours but did not turn many heads as the Serb easily won the first three sets.
When all was said and done, Tipsarevic was ecstatic to have helped his country to the semi-finals and in his own words said, "It feels really great, and I know that Serbia was a huge favourite to win with Robin Soderling not here
and Novak coming, but I'm happy to have helped my country once again."
The Serbian team encompassed some of the best players of the world and were the favourites to win the quarterfinals. Sweden, on the other hand, had a good team for the doubles while the singles team was subpar and was unable to
defeat the Serbs. However, at the end of the quarterfinals Ryderstedt showed sportsmanship by complementing his opponents and said, “He learnt a lot in his first Davis Cup matches, and although, it was a very difficult task to have faced players ranked so
much higher, we enjoyed the game”.
Team Serbia is to play Argentina in September during the semi-finals at their home ground thus giving them an advantage over Argentina; moreover, they are the second favourites to win the 2011 Davis Cup.
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