James Blake saved two match points to beat Paul-Henri Mathieu in a five-set thriller and position the defending champions on the verge of reaching the Davis Cup semi-finals on Friday.
The US led injury-depleted France 2-0 and lined up world No. 1 pair Bob and Mike Bryan for the doubles.
In the other quarter-finals, Russia, the 2006 champions and last year’s runners-up, were 1-1 with the Czech Republic at their Moscow fortress, Rafael Nadal led Spain to a 2-0 lead over Germany and Argentina and Sweden were 1-1 in Buenos Aires.
France started against the US without two of their top three players when Jo-Wilfried Tsonga withdrew with a knee injury, and No. 1 Richard Gasquet was rested because of a hand blister.
No surprise then when Andy Roddick took care of Michael Llodra 6-4, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (5). Left-handed Llodra was broken only once, but he could not overcome Roddick’s overwhelming serve in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
In a seesawing second singles, Blake faced two match points when Mathieu served at 5-4 in the fifth set. But Blake fended both off and broke serve, held his own serve for 6-5 and then broke the Frenchman again to finish the 3 hour, 48 minute match in an unexpected rush 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.
Marat Safin justified the faith of Russia captain Shamil Tarpishchev by overcoming a two-set deficit to surprise Tomas Berdych 6-7 (5), 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.
Safin has been struggling with a 1-5 record on the ATP tour this season and the star from the 2002 and 2006 championships was a late addition to the team, for which he had not played since last year’s quarter-finals.
Safin saved 16 of 17 break points against Berdych as he won from two sets down for the first time in 30 ties.
But Radek Stepanek recovered one point for the Czechs by sweeping Igor Andreev 6-3, 6-2, 6-4, going some way to making up for a horror Cup debut when he lost to Mikhail Youzhny and Nikolay Davydenko in 2003.
That Russian pair was set to meet Lukas Dlouhy and Pavel Vizner in the doubles.
Despite a fast indoor hard-court picked by Germany to foil Spain, the visitors led 2-0 in Bremen.
Rafael Nadal cruised past Nicolas Kiefer 7-6 (5), 6-0, 6-3 and David Ferrer beat Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.
Kohlschreiber needed on-court treatment for back and leg muscles and was down to play in the doubles with Philipp Petzschner to keep the tie alive for Germany.
Spain were putting out Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano Lopez to try and earn their first semi-finals berth since 2004, when they won their last title.
Robin Soderling stunned Jose Acasuso 6-0, 6-4, 6-1 for Sweden to tie Argentina after David Nalbandian beat Thomas Johansson 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2.
Acasuso was preferred to the more experienced Guillermo Canas and was 5-0 in Cup play, including two singles wins against Sweden on the same courts in his 2006 debut.
Jonas Bjorkman and Robert Lindsted will team for Sweden in doubles against Nalbandian and Canas.
Taiwan’s top women’s badminton doubles duo, Hsieh Pei-shan (謝沛珊) and Hung En-tzu (洪恩慈), achieved a straight-sets victory over Japan’s Kaho Osawa and Mayui Tanabe at the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Super 300 Macau Open on Sunday. The Taiwanese pair won the final 21-18, 21-12, marking the duo’s second title this year after their win at the BWF Super 300 Taipei Open in May. The match on Sunday was their first encounter with the Japanese duo, ranked No. 63 in the world. Hsieh and Hung, ranked No. 12, began the opening game well. Hung, who plays left-handed, performed strongly at both the net and the
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