About the score 2: 1 in favor of the Russian team, with which the rivals woke up on Sunday, on the eve of the meeting, few people dreamed of us. Safin’s uniform is always a dark forest, and if one believed in it, then with caution, they spoke with frank skepticism about Andreev’s chances to beat Gonzalez, as well as about the prospects of the pair combination. But Andreev won, allowing a formidable-looking, but, as it turned out, very tired opponent after Australian exploits to take only one set. The ease with which Marat dealt with his task helped Igor a lot: three sets were enough for Safin to win in the opening match of the match, and he really resisted Mass only in the starting game.
The fact that Massu is not a competitor to Safin was obvious a week ago, when the Olympic champion of Athens made it through agony to the semi-finals of the tournament in Viña del Mar, another Chilean resort that lost to La Serena the right to host the opening match of the Davis Cup 2007. Of course, that was a slightly different story, but on the eve of the team match, the opinion only got stronger. After the draw, in which the match referee first pulled out a piece of paper with the name Safin, thus determining the order of Friday's meetings, we talked to Massu, and the “vampire”, as Nicholas is called in the Chilean newspapers, for his stern and transparent look, long thin hair and an annoying character, clearly looked bloodless. “In general, there is almost no difference whether you play first or second,” Massu said. - Something depends on individual qualities, for example, some like to sleep longer. But overall, I don’t care. ” In the eyes of the Olympic champion, doom was clearly read.
On Friday, driven by patriotism, responsibility and a ten-thousand-strong audience, Massu rushed into battle, but collapsed after half an hour under pressure, of course, powerful, but at the same time an unusually calm and measured game by Safin. “I just played very well,” Marat will say after the match. “I didn’t have to carry out any special plan, the usual game was enough.” It should be noted that the usual Safin game may well be enough to defeat any opponent. Only usually Marat does not show the usual game. True, this does not apply to team matches. The Davis Cup, perhaps, has generally recently turned into Safin's favorite competition.
Igor Andreev’s situation is completely different. He was almost not involved in the triumph in the Davis Cup 2006. Almost the whole of 2006, he healed the injury. And most importantly, after a long pause, he spent half a dozen matches without gaining competitive practice. Finally, his first rival in La Serena was not the shadow of the Olympic champion, but the real Australian Open finalist. However, it turned out that Igor's trump cards are stronger than problems. In what, incidentally, Shamil Tarpishchev sincerely believed. There is even a feeling that he did not just believe, but knew! How he succeeds, the story is silent.
Half an hour before the start of the match, when Safin and Andreev finished the warm-up at one of the auxiliary courts of the stadium, Tarpishchev said: “Igor has a chance.” My incredulous look made the captain of our team reveal a tactical plan: Tarpishchev loves to be trusted. “Andreev plays with very strong spins and can vary the game by sending balls with different bounces and to different points. If he plays in this way, after a half set Gonzalez will begin to crumble. " Igor came out, lost the game, gave away the first two games of the second set, and then drop by drop squeezed out of Chilean almost all the arrogance, almost all the strength and almost the whole score. In the fourth game, Igor even led 5-0 and, if not for the best tennis audience in the world, would have finished the match a quarter of an hour earlier. But it turned out not so bad: six lost matchballs gave the game a special taste, but did not change the result.
We drive from the golf club to the decisive matches along the already routine road along the narrow gauge railway (neat blue cars with fine black sand from the mining and processing plant products run their course, despite the early Sunday morning), then along the long buildings of the shopping center, which is quite a solid mall, a rich grocery supermarket (oh, I wish we could have finished today, Chilean rarities and souvenirs cannot be bought!) and a line of boutiques and shops, then there’s no way across the bridge over an almost withered bed ereznoy streams on gray wasteland grew up to as a circus tent in an open field, stadium. Multi-colored five thousand is already in place, although before the match a good half hour, the second half of the audience is pulled by a trickle of cars.
After the pair’s defeat, Tarpishchev looked tense, saying, albeit with a constant grin, mainly about the problems - those that became apparent during the Saturday game and led to the defeat, and those that are waiting for us on Sunday: “Both single games will be more difficult than Friday's . Andreev is a very uncomfortable opponent for Gonzalez, which can not be said about Safina, who plays flat rhythmic beats. And in Andreev’s match with Massu, responsibility can play against us, because Igor has too little of such experience. He went to the match with Gonzalez liberated: there is nothing special to lose; no one expected victory from him. In this state, the fifth decisive match will not be possible in any way. ”
On Sunday morning, everyone in the team is in a great mood simply because we all, in principle, have a good life here, and night can always remove an unpleasant residue, like foam from a broth. “How will Safin win against Gonzalez?” - It is precisely this formulation of the question that seems appropriate to me. There is agreement in Tarpishchev’s response, although the captain admits the option of a decisive duel: “Safin must win at the expense of physics. He needs a set, one of the first two, better, of course, the first. Gonzalez should not be enough for four games. In general, Marat needs to play to the limit from the first minutes, so as not to allow Gonzalez and the public to receive positive emotions. From a tactical point of view, one should not be afraid to play him forehand. Yes, he is very strong at Gonzalez, but from the middle of the court or from a point just to the right of the center you cannot win the ball right through. But when you play under his left hand, he runs in and hits - both along the line and the cross. And it is much more dangerous. I spoke about this to Andreev during his match with Gonzalez, but he understood and did not immediately believe. Although still Igor completed the game plan. Today, if it comes to the decisive match, Andreev will be more difficult. You won’t swing the mass with an arrhythmic game, you need to push it, as Safin pressed. And this Igor turns out a little worse. However, Andreev has a physical reserve. Everything will depend on his nervous system. ”
I have to go up the steps to the very top of the rostrum, where under the gusts of wind from the ocean a tiny commentary booth sways. I don’t know how the match will end, but I’m used to believing Tarpishchev. This, you know, is not difficult after his Friday forecast.