Australia’s pairing of Lleyton Hewitt and Chris Guccione strolled past the Chinese duo of Gong Maoxin and Li Zhe in straight sets yesterday, giving the visitors a 2-1 lead in their Davis Cup Asia-Oceania Group 1 second-round match-up yesterday.
Guccione and Hewitt — a two-time Grand Slam winner — dispatched the Chinese pair 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 before a boisterous crowd at the Beijing International Tennis Center.
Hewitt, who made his Davis Cup debut in 1999, is Australia’s most successful Davis Cup player with a 36-9 record in singles and 8-3 record in doubles, but he has seen his ATP ranking slump to 173rd as he battles injury.
Photo: Reuters
The Australian win sets up today’s final day of single’s action, with Australia’s Marinko Matosevic facing off against Zhang Ze and Bernard Tomic meeting Wu Di.
On Friday, China’s 19-year-old Wu, who is ranked just 404th in the world, outlasted Matosevic in five sets for the hosts’ only win so far in the clash. Matosevic is ranked 141 in the world.
“The Chinese players are very disciplined, they are very tough and they make you beat them,” Australia coach Pat Rafter said. “I am very impressed with the way they went about it, they did a very good job.”
JAPAN VS UZBEKISTAN
AFP, KOBE, JAPAN
Japanese ace Kei Nishikori inspired his side to a 2-1 lead over Uzbekistan in the Davis Cup Asia-Oceania Group 1 second-round match up yesterday.
Nishikori teamed up with Go Soeda in the doubles in Kobe to beat Denis Istomin and Murad Inoyatov 7-5, 7-6 (7/5), 7-5 in the best-of-five contest.
Today will see Nishikori play Istomin and Ito take on Dustov.
NZ VS PHILIPPINES
AFP, WELLINGTON
New Zealand took an unbeatable 3-0 lead over the Philippines in their Asia-Oceania Group 1 Davis Cup match up when the debut pairing of Artem Sitak and Marcus Daniell won the vital doubles yesterday.
Rubin Statham and Michael Venus had cleaned up the opening singles on Friday when Statham beat Ruben Gonzales in straight sets, while Venus needed the full five sets to beat former top 100 player Cecil Mamiit.
Sitak, in his first Davis Cup match, then teamed up with Daniell to beat the experienced Mamiit and Gonzales 7-6 (7/0), 6-3, 6-2.
There were no service breaks in the first set, but the Kiwis proved invincible in the tie-break taking it 7-0 on a Mamiit double fault.
They then comfortably cruised through the next two sets to ensure New Zealand had won the relegation match, before today’s reverse singles.
“It’s the best day in my life, there’s no feeling like Davis Cup when you win like that,” said Russian-born Sitak, who was playing only his second game for New Zealand.
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