It is natural that Shamil Tarpishchev set the decisive point for the national team to get Svetlana Kuznetsova to get the first number of our team. Sveta started the match against Anabel Medina-Garrigues very confidently - 6: 3. But in the second set I was made to worry just like Nadezhda Petrova yesterday — again a parade of unforced errors. It’s hard to keep the desired level of concentration in the match, which you definitely win. Of course, this is a coincidence, but at first there was a feeling that Anabel was enchanted for our girls this weekend. Hope yesterday also won the first set 6: 3, and in the second also lost 1: 4. But Hope after that won 5 games in a row, but Sveta did not succeed. In principle, winning 5 games in a row was optional. With a score of 3: 5, Kuznetsova made a break and could even the score, there was little left - to take her pitch. But on the setball with Anabel Sveta, she again lost control of the excitement, sending the ball far out in the line.
Although in the third set, but the victory was to come to us. And she came. It is a pity that the fight did not work out - 6: 0. With a score of 2: 0 in favor of Kuznetsova, the Spaniard suffered a thigh injury, which put an end to all the hopes of the Spanish team.
The match of Anna Chakvetadze against Nuria Lyagostera-Vives in theory also should have turned out to be simple. And it didn’t work either. Miniature Nuria, only 156 centimeters tall, was determined to bring her team at least one point. From the very beginning, the Spaniard started a very stubborn struggle, and weakened by the final victory and smiling Tarpishchev Anya Chakvetadze came to her senses only with the score 1: 5. But losing the match was clearly not part of Chakvetadze’s plans. Although this match didn’t have any game significance, it’s somehow not easy to lose to an opponent who is obviously weaker, and even before her native audience, witness of Anna’s triumph at the Kremlin Cup last year. And it’s also not good to spoil your still poor cup statistics.
Anya began to recoup, but in the first set she simply did not have enough time - 3: 6. In the second set, the Russian woman continued to look for her game with varying success, but in these searches she still did not forget to win such a necessary tie-break. And in the third set, Ani everything turned out as it should have been in the first - 6: 2.
We did not have to win a pair game in this situation at all. Tarpishchev did not succeed in exposing the played duet, since the halves of the pairs of Chakvetadze - Vesnin and Kuznetsov - Petrov gave all the best in solitary play. As a result, Nadezhda Petrova and Elena Vesnina came to the fifth match, who until that moment had never even played together. But the mood at the headquarters was already so elevated that, apparently, it would not have been possible to lose even if they wanted to. Moreover, we have not won in the Federation Cup 5-0 for a long time - almost three whole years.
Ksenia VITRYAK