Nikolai Davydenko, with his loss, Mathieu put Shamil Tarpishchev in an unenviable position. On the one hand - a luxurious squad: not a team, but some kind of Dream Team. But in reality it turned out that on the third day there was no one to choose from. It’s scary to put Davydenko himself. South is injured. Andreev and Safin remained. And if, God forbid, it comes to the fifth decisive match, then Safin should definitely play it.
It is strange that the French did not put on the fourth match of Gasquet. Of course, he was not against Andreev a wholly-owned option, but he would have tried to load Igor under the left, so do not indulge. Moreover, he already has such an experience - Gasquet defeated Andreev on the ground in the Davis Cup 2005 in three sets.
Richard is said to have psychological problems. If the choice was made on the basis of this, then it was made in favor of Grosjean correctly. Andreev played well: for example, both had unforced errors for the match. But the trouble is that Igor was mistaken on very important balls, for example, missed a double break point in the first set. But Grosjean is not one of those who miss such chances. In a situation where the fate of the meeting depends on him, Grosjean would not have been Grosjean if he had not taken everything possible from the generosity of the Igorevs. In general, they guessed for the fourth match with Grosjean. But, I think, against Safin he would be more useful.
Marat does not thank God. It is difficult now to restore the sequence of events, but it seems that this was the case. Safin initially had some kind of ankle injury, so a bandage was placed on his leg. Then, during a traditional game of football, this bandage rubbed his corn. Because of the callus, Marat could not train normally all these days, and went to the match without the confidence that he would finish the game. How nice it is to know such news retroactively!
In the fifth match, we were lucky to some extent - Marat himself admitted that he was comfortable playing against Mathieu. The main thing was to immediately show who was the boss in the house. Perhaps, in any other situation, even the infernal resistance of Mathieu would still be crushed sooner or later, even in the fifth set. But now it was impossible to bring to the fifth set, and even to the fourth.
What a blessing that Marat started serving (237 km / h)! In principle, Safin is equipped enough to win such matches without a good serve. But he is such that sometimes, along with the service, he completely loses his psychological balance, and the fireworks begin. This time everything worked out - well, Safin cannot speak badly for the team. From the very first games, Marat began to play so that it became clear: he would never lose this match. And after the meeting he said: “From the very beginning I understood that I was winning, that nothing special was needed to win. And, admittedly, this is a very pleasant feeling. ” Still, Safin is an amazing character. It would seem that what else does this person need to win? Probably, all tournaments should be renamed into Davis Cups.
So, to summarize - we again failed to defeat the French “humanly”. Solid absurdities. Davydenko gives his rightful loner. We win a pair - this is the latest joke. Southern wins the match on one leg. Safin wins without legs at all and at the same time manages to show his best tennis in the only three-set match in this quarterfinal. In general, once again, we worthily passed the painfully familiar route "Fire - Water - Copper pipes". Now whoever you want to spend it on him.
Ksenia VITRYAK