Germany, France, Argentina and Austria all edged closer to the Davis Cup finals on Friday taking 2-0 leads in their second round qualifiers. The seven winners of the best-of-five matches in this weekend’s qualifiers advance to November’s ‘Final 8’ hosted by defending champions Italy in Bologna. In Tokyo, Jan-Lennard Struff and Yannick Hanfmann got former three-time winners Germany off the mark against Japan. Struff battled past Yoshihito Nishioka 6-4, 6-7 (4/7), 6-4 with Hanfmann seeing off Shintaro Mochizuki 6-3, 6-3.
In Groningen, Argentina’s Tomas Martin Etcheverry beat Jesper De Jong 6-4, 6-4 and Francisco Cerundolo dispatched Botic Van De Zandschulp 7-6 (7/4), 6-1.
“It’s tough to swallow,” said De Jong as the Netherlands need to win Saturday’s doubles to stay in the competition.
“It was an amazing atmosphere which I tried to use. I’m gutted I didn’t get the win for them.”
Davis Cup novice Corentin Moutet got France off the mark on indoor clay in Croatia beating Dino Prizmic 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 in Osijek.
The 26-year-old Frenchman had to work hard in a match that lasted 3hr 17min against the 20-year-old Prizmic who has moved up from 400th to 119th in the ATP rankings this year.
Arthur Rinderknech later eased match veteran Marin Cilic 6-2, 6-4 in the second rubber.
“It’s an ideal scenario. We obviously prefer to finish at 2-0 even if I know full well that the hardest part is tomorrow (Saturday),” said France captain Paul-Henri Mathieu.
In Debrecen, 173rd-ranked Jurij Rodionov gave Austria their first point against Hungary with an upset of 59th-ranked Fabian Marozsan 6-2, 6-7 (5/7), 7-5.
Lukas Neumayer later dispatched Marton Fucsovics 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (9/7) to leave the hosts with a mountain to climb to advance to the finals.
“It was a crazy match,” said 23-year-old Rodionov.
“It could have gone either way. I kept fighting, I keep grinding and believing in myself.”
On Saturday, Australia will bid to reach the Davis Cup finals for a fourth straight year against Belgium in Sydney.
The United States, record 32-times winners, host the Czech Republic in Delray Beach, Florida and Denmark take on six-time champions Spain in Marbella.
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