Dominik Koepfer put the German tennis men in the Davis Cup against Serbia in the lead.
In Innsbruck, the 27-year-old Black Forest rider beat Filip Krajinovic 7: 6 (7: 4), 6: 4 on Saturday.
With this, Koepfer fought for the first of two necessary points for the sought-after preliminary round victory.
Should Jan-Lennard Struff lose the subsequent top singles against the Serbian world number one Novak Djokovic, the decision on overall success would be made in the final doubles. In the event of a coup by the clear outsider, the German team would have taken an important step towards reaching the quarter-finals they had hoped for.
Koepfer started convincingly against Krajinovic. The world number 54. repeatedly attacked the second serve of Krajinovic, who was twelve places ahead of him, and took an early break to make it 2-1. With his loss of service to 3: 3 everything was balanced again. Only the tiebreaker decided on the first set, after 62 minutes the German box was allowed to cheer. Spectators are not allowed in the Olympic hall due to the corona lockdown in Austria. In the second set, too, Koepfer was the more aggressive player. Although he let the Serbs approach after an intermittent 4: 1 and 5: 3 lead, he used his second match ball after 1:59 hours.
On Sunday (not before 4 p.m. / ServusTV) the Germans will play their second group game against hosts Austria, who lost 3-0 to Serbia at the beginning.
Top player Alexander Zverev renounced his participation in the nations competition.