TENNIS – Italy vs GB. Naples celebrated a sensational comeback win by the Italian team who rallied from a 1-2 deficit to overcome Great Britain in the quarter final of the Davis Cup. First Italian top player Fabio Fognini clinched a stunning win over Andy Murray 6-3 6-3 6-4. Then Andreas Seppi completed the home triumph by beating James Ward 6-4 6-3 6-4. Italy set up a mouth-watering semifinal against a star-studded Swiss team. Diego Sampaolo
Listen to the post match interviews
Look at the images of Day 3 in Naples
Italy has reached the Davis Cup semifinals for the first time since 1998. That year the Italian team lost the final in Milan against Sweden.
“This is really a great victory. We started the day with two difficult matches. My players played two great matches. It’s difficult to believe that we won in six sets. We have waited for a long time to go into the semifinals”, said Italian Davis Cup Corrado Barazzutti.
Fognini played one of the best matches in his career breaking Murray’s winning streak of 19 consecutive singles victories in the Davis Cup. The Scotsman had not lost a singles match in this competition since 2005. Fognini was once again the Italian hero in the Davis Cup. He had already led Italy to an impressive win over Argentina in the first round last February and lived up to his strong reputation as Davis Cup specialist
Murray got off to a good start with a break and took a 3-1 lead but Fognini managed to break back. Murray was under pressure when he served at 3-4 but he made a double fault when he was facing a break point. Fognini reeled off five games in a row to serve out for the first set.
Murray held serve in the early games of the second set but Fognini got two breaks to go up 2-0 on sets. Murray served to stay in the match at 4-5 in the third set but Fognini earned three match points. Murray managed to fend off the first two match points before Fognini sealed his 12th consecutive Davis Cup singles win on his favourite clay surface as Murray his forehand into the net.
“The first day was the worst one because I was not feeling really good. I started to feel something after two sets and at the end we were a bit unlucky. I was really angry after the doubles match and this morning I woke up and said OK let’s go. Put your face in the court like always. I played my best tennis. It was really tough. ”, said Fognini.
Despite the defeat Murray congratulated with Fognini on his match. “He is a very strong player especially on clay. I knew it was gong to be a tough match and I wasn’t able to play well enough”, said Murray
In the second rubber World Number 34 Andreas Seppi sealed the Italian triumph by beating James Ward in three sets. It was not so easy for the player from Sud Tyrol despite the difference of ranking against World Number 161 Ward, who is able to raise his level when it comes to Davis Cup as he showed last February when he beat Sam Querrey in San Diego.
There were six breaks of serve in the first nine games before the match was interrupted for 25 minutes because of rain. Ward served to stay in the set at 4-5 but he made three forehand errors in a row to give Seppi a 1-0 lead.
Ward got a chance to break serve for 3-2 but Seppi saved it with a forehand. Seppi broke serve in the following game as Ward hit a backhand into the net. The Italian closed out the set with a drop shot.
Seppi served out the third set on his first match point.
“I was more nervous than in a a match in a normal tournament, as you are playing for your country and not for your yourself”, said Seppi
