Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Richard Gasquet beat the weakened Canadian team of Philipp Bester and Vasek Pospisil 7-6(4) 6-1 7-6(4) in the exotic island of Guadeloupe. This was a successful debut for their new captain Yannick Noah on the bench, as they did not lose a single set.
Both teams kept with their projected nominations for the doubles, Richard Gasquet playing with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, but instead of the usual Canadian doubles team of Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil, it was Philipp Bester partnering with Pospisil, as Nestor was forced to withdraw with an injury. Pospisil’s opening game was quite bad, he made two double faults and was broken. However, Tsonga was having an unsuccessful service game as well, so the Canadians broke back. Players kept holding, and Canadians had a huge opportunity at 5-4 for them, on Tsonga’s serve. Tsonga had 0-40, but managed to save those 3 break points. Canada got one more chance during that game, but they didn’t take it, and Tsonga made it 5-5. The match headed into the tiebreak in the first set, where France had the edge and took the tiebreaker 7-4 after incredible hour and 8 minutes, which is an unusual length of a set in doubles. Gasquet and Tsonga started the second set much better, getting two breaks on the Canadians and taking the second set 6-1. Bester and Pospisil had two break point opportunities at 0-2, which would give them a chance to take away the France’s lead early, but they didn’t succeed. The third set saw a lot of unused opportunities. Gasquet had to turn away two break points at 2-3, Bester had to save 3 at 4-4, but the match still headed into the tiebreak. All players showed great serving skills, as there was only one mini-break, which was enough for the French to get the win 7-4 in the tiebreak.
