Germany Defeats Great Britain In Thriller, Advances To Davis Cup SFs
Germany advanced to the semi-finals of the Davis Cup Finals on Tuesday evening, with the country’s doubles team of Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz leading the way past Great Britain in a thriller.
All three of Germany’s ties have gone to a deciding doubles rubber and on all three occasions, Krawietz and Puetz have come through. They battled past Great Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski 7-6(10), 7-6(5) on Tuesday to send their country to Madrid, where Germany will face the Russian Tennis Federation or Sweden.
“I’m super happy that we are going to Madrid. The whole team is great. We feel so comfortable with the whole team. The box today was unbelievably loud,” Krawietz said in his on-court interview. “[There were] no spectators, but we heard everything, so it pushed us a lot and we are super happy to make it through to the semi-finals.”
All four players showed a tremendous competitive spirit and flashes of brilliant shotmaking in Innsbruck. But the Germans stayed cooler under pressure to triumph. Krawietz and Puetz saved four set points in the first-set tie-break and rallied from 0/5 in the second-set tie-break to secure their victory.
“[It was] just grit, persistence, whatever you want to call it. I thought it was a pretty high level,” Puetz said. “I think it showed in the tie-break, us being down 5/0 and just [being] persistent, keeping going, believing in ourselves, playing point by point and here we are.”
Jan-Lennard Struff kept Germany’s hopes alive in the second match of the day when he clawed past 2021 breakthrough star Cameron Norrie 7-6(6), 3-6, 6-2.
Norrie, who competed as an alternate in the Nitto ATP Finals earlier this month, appeared to turn the match around when he forced the decider. But Struff played courageously to earn his first ATP Head2Head win against the lefty (series tied 1-1).
Earlier in the day, the crafty righty Daniel Evans had given Great Britain a 1-0 lead in the tie when he defeated Peter Gojowczyk 6-2, 6-1.