The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : USA wins doubles match

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USA wins doubles match

MADRID: The United States kept alive its hopes of retaining the Davis Cup when Mike Bryan and Mardy Fish beat Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco of Spain in a five-set thriller to reduce the home side’s lead to 2-1 in the World Group Davis Cup semifinals.

The US duo came from a set down to win the doubles 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in the third rubber of the best-of-five tie.

But with World No. 1 Rafael Nadal and fifth-ranked David Ferrer winning their matches on Friday, Spain needs just one point from Sunday’s two reverse singles to reach the final.

Fish was a late replacement for Bryan’s usual doubles partner, his twin brother Bob, who pulled out with a shoulder injury.

The Bryan twins have played the last 14 Davis Cup doubles rubbers for USA since making their debut in September 2003.

The Americans appeared to have the match under control after winning the second and third sets and then breaking the Spanish pair in the first game of the fourth set. But a break of serve for Verdasco and Lopez in the eigth game of the fourth set restored their confidence.

Argentina in lead

In Beunos Aires, Argentina was close to avenging its 2006 final loss against Russia after taking a 2-0 lead on Friday in the semifinals.

Juan Martin del Potro dismantled sixth-ranked Russian Nikolay Davydenko in the second singles match to put Argentina one win away from the final.

Earlier seventh-ranked David Nalbandian beat Russian Igor Andreev in the first match.

Del Potro secured a comfortable 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 victory.

The results:

World Group (semifinals):

At Buenos Aires: Argentina 2, Russia 0 (Juan Martin Del Potro bt Nikolay Davydenko 6-1, 6-4, 6-2; Agustin Calleri / Guillermo Canas v Igor Kunitsyn / Dmitry Tursunov).

At Madrid: Spain 2, USA 1 (Mike Bryan / Mardy Fish bt Feliciano Lopez / Fernando Verdasco 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4).

World Group Play-offs:

At Antofagasta: Chile 2, Australia 0 (Nicolas Massu bt Chris Guccione 7-6(4), 7-6(5), 3-6, 7-6(2); Fernando Gonzalez bt Peter Luczak 6-2, 6-2, 6-3).

At Wimbledon: Great Britain 1, Austria 2 (Julian Knowle / Jurgen Melzer bt Ross Hutchins / Jamie Murray 6-4, 6-3, 6-1).

At Lausanne: Switzerland 3, Belgium 0 (Roger Federer / Stanislas Wawrinka bt Olivier Rochus / Xavier Malisse 4-6, 7-6(6), 6-3, 6-3).

At Zadar: Croatia 2, Brazil 1 (Ivo Karlovic bt Thiago Alves 7-6(5), 7-6(3), 7-5; Marcelo Melo / Andre Sa bt Karlovic / Lovro Zovko 6-7(3), 6-2, 7-5, 6-7(5), 6-3).

At Apeldoorn: Netherlands 2, South Korea 1 (Peter Wessels / Jesse Huta Galung bt Jun Woong-Sun / Lee Hyung-Taik 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3).

At Bratislava: Slovakia 0, Serbia 3 (Janko Tipsarevic bt Lukas Lacko 6-7(3), 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(5), 8-6; Viktor Troicki / Nenad Zimonjic bt Michal Mertinak / Filip Polasek 7-6(8), 6-4, 6-7(7), 7-6(5). — Agencies

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