Italy one step away from Finals, Chile knocked out
Italy, Davis Cup
Good news for Italy.
Alexis Galarneau beat Alejandro Tabilo in two sets, giving Canada the first point in the last match of round A but, above all, to Italy the concrete possibility of detaching its ticket to the Finals in Malaga next November. In fact, thanks to the Canadian’s success, captain Volandri’s men only need to win against Sweden, in case of Chile’s 2-1 victory, or get a point in case of Canada’s victory to gain qualification to the quarterfinals.
Just under two hours of play for a big sigh of relief. The fate of the Azzurri thus returns to their hands after last Wednesday's shock start and the 3-0 defeat suffered by Canada in the opener.
Friday evening the Davis Cup match between Italy and Chile at the Unipol Arena in Bologna ended 3-0: Lorenzo Sonego and Lorenzo Musetti won the final doubles by beating with the score of 6-7 6-3 7-6 after two hours and 23 minutes of play Tomas Barrios Vera and Alejandro Tabila.
In the first game the blues save two break points on Sonego’s serve, another has to be saved in the third game on Musetti’s serve. The blue pair also has one at 4-3 in their favor but Barrios Vera saves it with his serve.
On 4-4 and Sonego serve the Azzurri go 0-40 but save themselves and then cancel another break ball. It goes to the tie-break, deservedly dominated by the Chileans who fly to 6-1 and close it on 7-3.
At 2-1 for the South Americans Sonego lost his serve in the fourth game of the second set but here the two Lorenzi strung together five consecutive games snatching the serve twice from Barrios Vera and once from Tabilo.
So it goes to the third and the Azzurri misses a break point at 2-1 in their favor and Barrios Vera serves. No break and then the tie-brea decides and this time the Azzurri win it closing it on 7-2 with an ace by Musetti.
