In a vibrant marathon match, the young doubles team from Romania, Florin
Mergea and Horia Tecau, beat the locals Nicolas and Giovanni Lapentti
76(2) 16 63 36 1311 in a duel that lasted four hours and 15 minutes.
The European debutants, the current ITF Junior Boys' Doubles champions who
had never played a Davis Cup match before, demonstrated the same class as
the Ecuadorians who had started out as favourites. Mergea and Tecau got
through an incident-packed first set on a tiebreak, when the Ecuadorian
players requested a change of chair umpire, then things calmed down and the
match developed into a high quality affair.
Most of the games were won with winners. The Romanians always had the
advantage because they won the first set, then they established a
two-sets-to-one lead, leaving their rivals always with pressure.
The fifth set was definitely memorable - there were no break points until
the bitter end, which went to a 24th game. In the final games the Lapentti
brothers had many chances to break but could not convert because the
18-year-old Romanians saved the break points with as much class as more
experienced players.
In the last game, with Nicolas Lapentti serving at 11-12, the Lapenttis
could not save their opponents' first match point, as the Romanians showed
great emotion when Mergea sent a return which Nicolas could not respond to.
This set alone lasted an hour and 50 minutes.
Tomorrow the tie will be completed and the Romanians go into the final day
with a 2-1 advantage; another thing in the Romanians' favour is that the
Lapenttis have played more than eight hours each over Friday and Saturday.
Meanwhile Romanian singles players Victor Hanescu and Razvan Sabau are
completely rested.
Mergea said, "It was difficult for us to maintain our focus because it was
hard to play in front of such a crowd which made loads of noise, but we
believed in ourselves and our hard work paid off. And for the Ecuadorians
there was loads of pressure for them on the key points."
For the Ecuadorians, Nicolas Lapentti said, "Sometimes luck plays an
important part in a match like this because we had many break points in
the fifth set. Unfortunately we could not convert them " as well they only
had one and they converted - they played the key points better. That makes
a difference. In close matches just one point can make the difference. We
no longer have an advantage but we have two singles matches tomorrow so we
still have a chance."
Giovanni Lapentti said, "I will play the fifth point and I am sure that my
brother will beat Hanescu. It is true that I have had more than eight hours
on court, I feel tired now but by tomorrow I will feel better."
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