At first, it seemed that we could not win a pair, regardless of the composition. Guy Forge has a richer choice of paired players, and the players themselves have more paired achievements. Anyway - we never beat a couple of the French. But it was worth taking a closer look, and it turned out that our victory was not so random.
Guy Forge relied primarily on Michel Llodre. Llodra is a paired specialist of extra class. In his piggy bank there are two victories and two finals at the Grand Slam tournaments, as well as a victory and a final at the final championship. Grosjean - also a good doubles player, has four doubles in the standings. But here is the interesting thing. Llodra won all of these high-profile titles paired with his beloved partner Fabrice Santoro. With another beloved partner, Arno Clement, Llodra has smaller achievements, but he also has them. And Grosjean won the most high-profile victories with the same Clement and Santoro. But the pair Llodra - Grosjean has no past - they played together only one match in 2005 and they lost. A vivid illustration of the fact that a couple is a couple - these are two people, anyway.
Our Andreev and Davydenko are not serious greenhouses, they don’t especially like this business and rarely deal with it. Both have just one doubles title and one final. But what’s interesting: they earned this title and final together, and it was at the Kremlin Cup, that is, at home. In 2004 there was a victory (also a victory of Davydenko in singles), in 2005 - a final (also a victory of Andreev in singles). And even more interestingly, in 2005, our pair of unpaired partners in the first round did not beat anyone, but Santoro and Llodra!
If Davydenko won alone, ours would lead 2-0, and the pair could not be so worried. Then Tarpishchev would surely have saved Kolya on the third day. But in this state, releasing Nicholas against Gasquet is doubly dangerous. Firstly, it could go sideways to the whole team. And secondly, Kolya would have received in the appendage an even greater sense of guilt, which would hardly have strengthened his already not burning desire to play for the national team in the future.
The captain, of course, does not want to lose such a player as Davydenko. After all, what happened yesterday with Mathieu is an exception, not a rule. It turned out that there was no point in saving Davydenko on the third day. Yes, and a choice too. Nikolai admitted that he began to prepare for the pair immediately after the defeat, since Marat is not in shape, Yuzhny is injured and he and Igor are the only acceptable option that would allow, if not counting on victory, then at least hope for it.
The disadvantages of physical form when playing in a pair are not so clearly visible, and it is necessary to answer for half the court. So it turned out that Nikolai got a second chance and went on to correct what he had done. And this, admittedly, is fair. The main thing was to choose the right tactics, but in what, and in this Tarpishchev is rarely mistaken.
The tactics were simple - to play in a pair of two loners. Compete in the construction of ingenious combinations with a constant stay at the grid with such masters as Llodra and Grosjean, is useless. Because ours stayed mainly on the back line. Igor took the speed, Nikolai - the variety of strokes, actively took in the legs, threw candles. Having conspired, we tried to become more active on Grosjean’s pitch, as there were almost no chances on Llodra’s pitch (225 km / h), and keep on pitch. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not, sometimes it was very beautiful. So they survived to the fifth set, and in the end they added. Here is a seemingly simple plan. And the French are again in shock.
Ksenia VITRYAK