Davis Cup, Fognini-Bolelli in chorus: “Sonego played a great match.”
Fognini and Bolelli’s words at the end of the victory over the U.S.
After the extraordinary victory against Paul-Sock that allowed Italy to defeat the United States and enter the semifinals, the Fognini-Bolelli pair answered Stefano Meloccaro’s questions to the microphones of Sky Sport.
“It was tough, we knew from the beginning as we have said in the past few days that it was an uphill match,” Fognini commented. “Obviously it was much more uphill without Jannik and Matteo but today the first Lorenzo (Sonego, ed.) did a great performance, the second (Musetti, ed.) also but he played against a Fritz who is very fit and has a lot of confidence right now here. We knew that it could be decided at the doubles decider and once again when we got on the court we responded presently and we gave it our all to defend these beautiful colors and we brought it home.”
“I think we played a very good match both of us from all points of view,” Bolelli said. “It was a very tough match also in terms of emotion, it was important, we knew it was a very tough three points today. Sonego played a great match as Fabio said and Muso really came close, so today Italy showed that it can dream, that it can do well, we are a team aware that we can do really well. We tried our best, we tried to be aggressive, the court is quite fast, so you have to take the initiative a little bit, we followed the whole match well, we tried to be aggressive on the response turns, it went well from there.”
“We tried it like every time, we knew that Sock is a staple of this national team, we were a little bit surprised at the beginning by the summonses because with all due respect to Tommy Paul who is a great singles player, in doubles on the circuit you see very little. They didn’t summon Ram who just won the Masters, so let’s say better for us … right now here I don’t know if we’re going to be here having fun and smiling, but darn them. I’m happy because we had a good performance, something we’ve been lacking in the last period, especially in the last month and a half we’ve been pulling the bat in our own feet and this dream (qualifying for the Finals, ed.) that could have become a reality, slipped away. We lacked a performance with a capital P,” Fabio continued.
“A little bit of tension is always there, we were nervous anyway, we tried to be aggressive, to go for it at the match, not to wait for them to give it to us. The court is very fast so you can’t wait that long, you can’t play doubles defensively, you have to attack and try to take the initiative. They let’s say, not serving and volleying like we did, playing a non-aggressive doubles, we tried to put more pressure on them,” Simone concluded.
