The Czech Republic got within a point of defending their Davis Cup title as Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek beat Serbia’s Ilija Bozoljac and Nenad Zimonjic in Saturday’s doubles in Belgrade.
Berdych and Stepanek won the 14th of their 15 Davis Cup doubles rubbers together as they swept the hosts 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) in two hours and 12 minutes to give the Czechs a 2-1 lead over 2010 champions Serbia.
In yesterday’s reverse singles, world No. 2 Novak Djokovic was scheduled to first take on Berdych, while Stepanek was due to face world No. 117 Dusan Lajovic, who has replaced the injured 36th-ranked Janko Tipsarevic.
Photo: Reuters
However, Serbia captain Bogdan Obradovic said he may call on Bozoljac for the fifth rubber.
“For sure Novak is going to play, but I’m going to talk to the guys tonight and we’ll make a decision” about the fifth rubber, he said.
Stepanek said he had no priority.
“I have to get ready for my rubber, for my performance, no matter who’s on the other side. The good thing is we didn’t waste too much energy today,” he said.
The Czechs dominated the doubles, being a more compact team from the start.
The 28-year-old Berdych served and returned well throughout, while the 34-year-old Stepanek — the world No. 9 for doubles — gave yet another spotless display at the net, delivering stunning volleys.
“I dare say this was maybe one of our best performances as a team,” Stepanek said.
Zimomjic added: “They were better in every aspect of the game, a really strong team, they’ve been playing together for many years and this is the reality. They were controlling the game from the beginning to the end.”
The two Czechs, who only play together in the Davis Cup, allowed just a single break point in the whole rubber midway through the third set.
The 37-year-old Zimonjic, world No. 14 for doubles, received the Davis Cup Award of Excellence before the match, but he showed only hints of his talent to the frantic home crowd.
Zimonjic lost the very first serve of the rubber and when Bozoljac, who is 28, followed suit in the seventh game, the Czechs won the first set 6-2 in just 30 minutes.
They took 40 minutes to win the second set — Zimonjic kept struggling with his serve, lost his first one again and that was all the Czechs needed to win 6-4.
The third set was the tightest as the Czechs cooled off a bit, while the Serbian pair showed the blend of skills that took them past the Bryan brothers in the Davis Cup quarter-finals in April.
Both pairs held on to their serves until a tie break in which the Czechs regained their dominance to win 7-6 (7/4).
Berdych said he was happy the team was “meeting the weekend plan” and that he and Stepanek will “do our best to sit here as winners.”
Against Djokovic, “I have nothing to lose, it’s a huge challenge for me to play him in front of his home crowd. I’m in the best possible position after Saturday,” Berdych said.
On Friday, Djokovic, the recently crowned ATP World Tour Finals champion, beat Stepanek, 7-5, 6-1, 6-4.
Seventh-ranked Berdych then put the Czechs level with a three-set win over Lajovic — 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 — on the hard court at the sold-out Belgrade Arena, which seats more than 15,000 people.
Besides Tipsarevic, Serbia are missing 76th-ranked Viktor Troicki, out over a doping ban.
Robinson Cano spent 17 seasons playing in the MLB in front of all kinds of baseball fans, but he said there is something special about his stint with the Mexican Baseball League’s Diablos Rojos. He is not alone. The league last week opened its 100th season, aiming to keep an impressive growth in attendance that began after the national team’s surprise run at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, and is already surpassing some first-division soccer clubs. After finishing third in the 2023 tournament, many casual fans, some of them soccer enthusiasts disappointed after Mexico were eliminated in the first round in the 2022
Noelvi Marte on Sunday had seven RBIs and hit his first career grand slam with a drive off infielder Jorge Mateo, while Austin Wynn had a career-high six RBIs as the Cincinnati Reds scored their most runs in 26 years in a 24-2 rout of the Baltimore Orioles. Marte finished with five hits, including his eighth-inning homer off Mateo. Wynn hit a three-run homer in the ninth off catcher Gary Sanchez. Cincinnati scored its most runs since a 24-12 win against the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999, and finished with 25 hits. Baltimore allowed its most runs since a 30-3 loss to
Arne Slot has denied that Darwin Nunez was dropped from Liverpool’s win against West Ham because of a training-ground row with a member of his coaching staff. The Liverpool head coach on Sunday last week said that Nunez was absent from the 2-1 victory at Anfield, having felt unwell during training the day before, although the striker sat behind the substitutes throughout the game. Speculation has been rife that the Uruguay international, whom Slot criticized for his work rate against Wolves and Aston Villa in February, was left out for disciplinary reasons. Asked on Friday to clarify the situation, Slot said: “He
In-form teenager Mirra Andreeva on Thursday crashed out of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany, after going down in straight sets to fellow Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova in the last 16. World No. 7 Andreeva, who already has two titles under her belt this season, lost 6-3, 6-2 against the 22nd-ranked Alexandrova in just over an hour. The 17-year-old Andreeva had defeated her elder sister Erika in the previous round on Wednesday, but Alexandrova quickly took control as she claimed her fourth win over a top-10 player this season. The 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva in February became the youngest winner of a WTA
RSS