Against Finland
2:0! Austria has one foot in the Davis Cup
Austria's men have one foot in the second qualifying round of the Davis Cup final tournament. After Lukas Neumayer's surprising opening win against Otto Virtanen, Jurij Rodionov followed suit. With a 2:6, 6:3, 6:3 against Eero Vasa, he made it 2:0 despite some initial difficulties. "That was the perfect first day," said a delighted captain Jürgen Melzer.
Kronen Zeitung als bevorzugte Google-Quelle hinzufügen With his somewhat surprising success over Otto Virtanen, Lukas Neumayer had given his team-mate Jurij Rodionov an ideal template. Captain Jürgen Melzer had also said: "If one of us beats Otto, it looks good."
However, Austria's number one initially found it extremely difficult to add the hoped-for, indeed expected, second point. Yet he was only up against the current world number 568, Eero Vasa. The 27-year-old had never cracked the top 500. But that also helped him. He had nothing to lose, hit every ball with all his might and was particularly accurate on his first serve.
In contrast, Rodionov, as so often in the role of favorite, seemed somewhat inhibited. When Vasa served first, the 25-year-old never really found his way into the rallies and had no means of returning for a long time. As a result, the clear outsider from Finland clearly took the first round 6:2.
But Rodionov gradually fought his way into the second set. "Jürgen also helped me with tips, I tried to make the rallies longer, to give him more question marks," he explained later. The break to 4:2 was the redemption: "I fought, ran and moaned," he said. This eased Rodionov's tension somewhat, while his opponent began to make more mistakes.
Although the Austrian missed the double break, he forced the deciding third set 6:3. The world number 155 was clearly the better player in this set, ultimately winning 2:6, 6:3, 6:3. The fans celebrated him with "Sweet Caroline". So everything looks set for promotion.
On Saturday, Alex Erler and Lucas Miedler could make it 3-0 in the doubles and thus secure promotion to the second qualifying round. In this round, the men's tennis team would play either Canada or Hungary in September for a place at the final tournament in Bologna.
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