DAY 3: Knowing that a win over Frenchman Richard Gasquet would see Croatia into the Davis Cup Final, Marin Čilić took care of business winning in straight sets: 6-3, 6-2, 7-5. This made the fifth and final match a mute point as Team Croatia will now face Juan Martin del Potro and Argentina in the Final. Croatia will host the Final at a site that is yet to be determined November 25-27.
DAY 2: Marin Čilić replaced Marin Draganja Saturday in doubles action alongside Ivan Dodig; and the move paid off. Čilić and Dodig took care of Herbert and Mahut in four sets: 7-6, 5-7, 7-6, 6-3 to give Croatia a 2-1 lead going into the final day of play in the Davis Cup semifinals. Croatia only needs to win one of their singles matches on Sunday to book their spot in the Final against the winner of Great Britain and Argentina. The Final would be played in November. The schedule for Sunday looks for Marin Čilić to play Richard Gasquet and young gun Borna Ćorić to face Lucas Pouille.
DAY 1: Borna Ćoric lost the first match of the day to Frenchman Richard Gasquet in straight sets but Croatia #1 Marin Čilić got the best-of-five tie back to even after defeating Lucas Pouille relatively easy in four sets. The Davis Cup semifinal affair between the two nations will continue on Saturday in Zadar when the two sides turn to doubles action. The winner of the Dodig/Draganja v Herbert/Mahut match will have one leg into the final as the victor will only need one singles match victory on Day 3 to progress.
The Croatian Men’s tennis team, composed of Marin Čilić, Borna Ćorić, Ivan Dodig and Marin Draganja, will host the French this weekend in the Davis Cup semifinals from Zadar. The Davis Cup is the equivalent to the World Cup of tennis as tennis is typically played on an individual level.
It’s the best of five with two singles matches being played Friday, a doubles match on Saturday, followed by two more singles matches on Sunday; if necessary. In the quarterfinal round, Croatia came back from a 2-0 deficit to steal three straight matches from the Americans in Oregon back on July 17th.
Croatia last played in the Davis Cup Final in 2005, when they won the whole thing against Slovakia and had a memorable 1st Round in Los Angeles against Team USA where more Croatians turned out than Americans. Team CroatianSports.com was there before the website was ever launched and these tennis matches had football-like atmosphere.
Stay tuned throughout the weekend for updates against France…
are our supporting players better then theirs?
Very impressive stuff from Marin. And we’re hosting the final too which is great news. Del Potro will be hard to beat tho
This once again proves my point that Croatia over achieves in sports. When the Fix isn’t in Croatia finds a way to win.
Beautiful !
Well done guys.. fantastic result.. real chance now – well, expected chance to move into the final !
Hats off to Cilic
yeah.. but you would prolly favour us in the singles so even if we’re 2-1 down it’s still possible, i think we were 2-0 down v USA previous round and won 3-2
So if we split day 3 pretty much it comes down to who wins doubles?
Yeah Coric got a spanking, disappointing.. looks like Cilic has to carry us, per usual
Coric lost, straight sets.
We got lucky with their withdrawals due to injury so this tie is truly ours for the taking now. I’ll be disappointed if we lose.