French Teamwork Takes The Doubles
France has taken a significant step towards reaching September's Davis Cup
by BNP Paribas Semifinals, with a four-sets win in the doubles of the
Lausanne quarterfinal. The French team of Nicolas Escude and Michael Llodra
beat Switzerland's Yves Allegro and Roger Federer 67(4) 63 76(5) 63 to take
an absorbing match and with it a 2-1 lead into the reverse singles.
It was a tremendous victory for the French pair, who started slowly but soon
found excellent teamwork. Llodra was the architect, a vastly improved doubles
player over the past 18 months, whose big left-handed serve was never broken.
For his part, Escude made more errors but found his best tennis when he
needed it most.
Yet any analysis of the match cannot avoid the conclusion that Switzerland
had the weak link. That's a harsh verdict on the 25-year-old Allegro, who
didn't play badly, but from the start it was clear he plays too few matches
at this level, and the number of returns he missed ultimately proved crucial.
As a result, Federer inevitably took on more responsibility, and for much of
the match it worked. But the pressure told as he dropped his serve three
times in the first three sets, and his was the serve to suffer at the sharp
end of the third set when the doubles was effectively decided.
The Swiss took the first set on a 7-4 tiebreak having never been behind,
but the French broke Federer in the fourth game from 40-15 down, which
sufficed to level the match.
In the third, the French looked to have earned the decisive break when
Federer was broken for the third time at 5-5, but the Swiss then broke
Escude to take the match into a second tiebreak. The home nation led 5-3,
but four inspired points from Llodra saw France turn it round. As the
left-hander hit the winning backhand return which closed the set, he
leapt for joy and clenched his fist, a celebration almost worthy of winning
the Davis Cup itself.
At that moment he knew the force was with the French, and when Allegro was
broken in the fourth game of the fourth set, the mountain proved too high
for the Swiss to climb. Allegro saved two match points on his serve as the
French ran rampant, but it only delayed the inevitable by a few minutes, as
a Llodra serve that Federer couldn't handle ended the match after exactly
three hours.
Llodra said afterwards: "I think the difference between the two pairs was
that we were able to raise our level at the most important moments. The role
of Guy [Forget, the French captain] was also very important, especially after
we lost the first set. He got us into the right frame of mind for the second
set."
The Swiss captain Marc Rosset said: "I'm disappointed with the result, but
I'm very happy with the attitude of my players, and we haven't given up hope
for tomorrow."
Indeed not everything is lost for the Swiss. Despite the disappointment of
his defeat in the doubles, the world No 1 Federer still goes into his match
against the 25th-ranked Arnaud Clement as a clear favourite, and if he can
win that, then the tie will go to a live fifth rubber just as the
quarterfinal in Neuchatel did three years ago.
On that occasion Escude came back from match point down to beat George Bastl
86 in the fifth set, and the Frenchman is likely to feature this time. He
will certainly start as favourite against either the nominated Ivo Heuberger
or the more experienced Michel Kratochvil, though since the hip injury that
caused him to miss six months of last year he has struggled to play on three
successive days, so the tie may not be quite as decided as it seems after the
doubles.
http://www.daviscup.com/news/matchreport.asp?id=12876
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