Seppi leads Italy into Davis Cup finals

KOLKATA: Andreas Seppi guided Italy into the first finals of the revamped Davis Cup after outplaying India 3-1 in the world group qualifier on Saturday.

Seppi brushed aside India’s number one Prajnesh Gunneswaran 6-1, 6-4 in the first reverse singles tie at Kolkata’s grass court after India avoided a whitewash by taking the doubles.

Italy, who had led 2-0, overnight were forced to extend the encounter after Simone Bolleli and Matteo Berrettini lost to Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan 6-4, 3-6, 4-6.

The 34-year-old Seppi returned unfazed by Italy’s doubles loss to outplay the 102-ranked Gunneswaran in just over an hour to take his team into the finals in Madrid in November. The final dead singles game was not played.

Under the new format adopted by the International Tennis Federation, the Davis Cup will be decided at a season-ending 18-team event between the week of November 18-24.

Seppi is not looking too far into the tennis calendar but is confident of a strong showing by his team.

Bopanna and Sharan came back from a set down to beat the Bolleli-Berrettini combination in the new Davis Cup format cut from the best of five sets to three.

Italy decided to play the 22-year-old Berrettini in the doubles tie instead of their top singles player, world number 19 Marco Cecchinato, who did not feature in any of the matches.

Seppi beat Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-4, 6-2 on Friday’s opening day, while Berrettini outplayed Gunneswaran 6-4, 6-3.

In Paris, Alexander Zverev crushed Peter Nagy of Hungary to put Germany within touching distance of a place in the finals of the revamped Davis Cup on Friday.

The German World No. 3 beat the Hungarian, who finished 2018 outside the top 600, 6-2, 6-2, to put Germany 2-0 up with the doubles and reverse singles all to be played on Saturday.

Philipp Kohlschreiber had opened the tie in Frankfurt by outlasting Zsombor Piros 6-7 (8/6), 7-5, 6-4.

Former champions Australia, Russia and Serbia also took 2-0 leads.

John Millman brushed aside Bosnian number one Damir Dzumhur 6-3, 6-2, in Adelaide, before rising star Alex De Minaur beat Mirza Basic 6-3, 7-6 (7/0) to claim his first Davis Cup win.

Serbia also moved to within one win of qualification despite the absence of Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic, as Dusan Lajovic saw off world number 593 Sanjar Fayziev 7-6 (7/4), 6-3, before Filip Krajinovic’s 6-2, 6-4 win over Denis Istomin in Tashkent.

Russian youngster Daniil Medvedev survived a scare against Switzerland’s Henri Laaksonen in their opening rubber, winning 7-6 (10/8), 6-7 (6/8), 6-2 to give the visitors the lead in Biel. Then world number 11 Karen Khachanov’s beat 362nd-ranked Marc-Andrea Huesler, 6-3, 7-5.