The match meeting between the national teams of Russia and Germany in the Davis Cup could have become almost the most important in this tournament if Alexander Zverev was in the German team.
This season, he beat Daniil Medvedev, Andrei Rublev, and Karen Khachanov in the most important matches, so that almost the entire team of Shamil Tarpishchev would have thoughts of revenge.
However, the third racket of the world was not in Madrid.
The Olympic champion did not come to the final stage of the Davis Cup.
The reason was not fatigue due to the long season, but reluctance to participate in the tournament in its current format.
The German national team was left without their undoubted leader, however, even in his absence, they achieved impressive success - they beat Serbia in the group stage and made their way to the semifinals, where the Russian team was waiting for it.
The match for reaching the final began with a meeting between Andrei Rublev and Dominik Koepfer, who occupies 54th place in the world ranking. The participation of the fifth racket of the world could cause some caution. Rublev became the busiest member of the team, who was responsible for both singles and doubles. After the defeat to Feliciano Lopez, the Russian, although he had a few days of rest, was a little disappointing when he had an intense three-set fight with the 171st racket of the world Elias Imer from Sweden. Rublev had to beat such an opponent without bringing the match to a tie-break in the decisive game.
Nevertheless, Rublev remained in the squad and entered the court for the sixth time in the last week. Almost immediately after the start of the game with Koepfer, the Russian dispelled all thoughts about the decline of form. Already in the third game, Rublev earned a double break point and immediately realized it. This turned out to be enough to chalk up the first set. Rublev no longer encroached on someone else's serve, but he played his own incomparably - in his games he gave only five points, and even then most of them were already the second ball.
In the next game, Koepfer immediately found himself in the role of a catch-up. He began to take unnecessary risks on the second serve, and when the fate of the first game was in the balance, the German made a double mistake. At the reception, he absolutely could not oppose anything to the sharp blows of the Russian. This set differed from the previous one only in that this time Rublev nevertheless decided to finish it as soon as possible. He earned two more break points and realized them on the first try, which allowed him to win the set with a score of 6: 0, spending only 22 minutes on it. After the match, Rublev admitted that he himself was surprised at such an easy victory.
“I don’t know when was the last time I won like that. Compared to previous matches, the main task today was to start playing and not relax, as it happened before. When I won quite easily at the beginning of the matches, and then I didn't seem to have to put so much effort, and in the end I gave everything to my opponents myself - and either won three sets or lost. Today I realized that I had to play from the very beginning to the end and only add and add. If I can win 6: 0, then that's the way to win. Don't give anything away and don't make stupid mistakes. In the end, it happened, ”- said Rublev to Okko Sport.
The opportunity to get a ticket to the final went to Daniil Medvedev, whose rival in the next match was Jan-Lennard Struff. The Russian met him twice this year on grass courts, and in these fights a draw was recorded between them - they exchanged victories and won each other three sets each. But on hard for the second racket of the world there was a clear advantage that he was going to realize.
The first set took place in a fairly equal fight. None of the tennis players scored more than two points at the reception, and the party was systematically moving towards a tie-break. But at the right time, Medvedev took advantage of the decline in the 51st racket in the world, which had three consecutive mistakes on its serve. The Russian took advantage of this gift and soon completed the set in his favor. The quality of his presentation was even higher than that of Rublev - only four points went to Struff, while Medvedev made exactly the same number of aces.
The second game began in exactly the same way as the first - the opponents quickly played out their games, not trying to aggravate the situation.
Only this time the turning point came a little earlier, with the score 2: 2.
Again, Struff did not play, only now it was largely caused by the cool pranks performed by Medvedev.
However, the joy of the break was short-lived - the US Open champion suddenly had a nosebleed, and he had to call a doctor to the court.
Fortunately, the problem was quickly resolved.
Although the German still had time to save his team from relegation, with the game that Medvedev demonstrated, this was completely impossible.
For the first time since 2007 to make it to the final, the Russian national team had less than two hours of playing time.
In the battle for the title, the Croatian team will be waiting for her, having won, in turn, Serbia.