Taiwan on Saturday swept Mexico in the first day of their Davis Cup World Group playoff tie, while three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka rolled back the clock to secure a thrilling win for Switzerland over Germany in their qualifier.
World No. 110 Tseng Chun-hsing beat Mexico’s Cesar Ramirez 6-4, 6-3 in straight sets on a clay court in Metepec, Mexico, while Hsu Yu-hsiou of Changhua City dominated Alan Fernando Rubio Fierros 7-5, 6-3.
Their showdown started under controversy after a group of Mexican players last week said they would not compete as they were not given enough notice about the date or venue by the Mexican Tennis Federation. The federation later named a new slate of players, and said that some who had protested were ineligible for the tournament.
Hsu and Jason Jung were yesterday to play Luciano Alcocer and Isaac Arturo Arevalo in doubles, while Tseng would take on Rubio Fierros and Hsu would play Ramirez.
The 37-year-old Wawrinka — part of the Swiss 2014 Davis Cup winning team, but who had not played in the event since 2015 — beat Daniel Altmaier 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 to seal a 3-2 win in Trier.
It was Wawrinka’s first win of the tie after losing to Alexander Zverev on Friday and the doubles on Saturday.
Switzerland would take one of the 12 spots up for grabs for the Davis Cup Finals group stage in September.
A busy weekend of ties had 24 nations competing with the 12 winners joining last year’s champions Canada, runners-up Australia and wildcards Spain and Italy.
The US swept Uzbekistan aside with a 4-0 victory, while the Ymer brothers, Mikael and Elias, guided Sweden to a 3-1 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mackenzie McDonald and Tommy Paul had given the Americans a 2-0 lead on Friday before the doubles pairing of Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram beat Sergey Fomin and Sanjar Ayziev 6-2, 6-4 to give the record 32-time winners an unassailable lead.
Britain also made it through as Cameron Norrie sealed a 3-1 lead against Colombia in Bogota by beating Nicolas Mejia 6-4, 6-4.
World No. 253 Mejia had given Colombia the lead on Friday by upsetting Dan Evans on the clay.
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