(Tennis news) Day 7 of ATP Cup saw the first semi final match between Spain and Poland. Spain was the runner up in the 2019 edition and reached the finals last year. Now they have a second chance at winning the title as the opponents will be decided in the match between Russia and Canada.
Spain defeated Canada 2-1
Things went according to plan in the first match as it looked like Pablo Carreno Busta wanted to save as much energy as possible for the final. The world number 20 had magical footwork and Jan Zielinski could only take notes as he could not interrupt the flow. The Spaniard hit 11 winners in both the sets and had only 1 unforced error in the second as opposed to 2 in the first set.
Zielinski was in good spirits as he saved a matchpoint by playing a trick drop return which even shocked the crowd as they started cheering him on and then he hit a blazing forehand cross court winner to save another. It got the crowd going but after 53 minutes it was time for both of them to sit and cheer for their teammates as Spain was now in the lead.
The second match was filled with intense competition between Roberto Bautista Agut and Hubert Hurkacz. The players had met each other twice before with Roberto winning both and each match had a tie break. Both of them did honour the tie break tradition as this time there were two and it took almost 3 hours for the 2nd point to emerge.
The stats were enough to read what was going on the court. Hurkacz hit 61 winners, 24 aces and came to the net 46 times in which only lost 10 of them. Roberto had 28 winners, a single ace and came to the net 27 times while losing just 6 of them and both of them won 108 points. Hubert was leading in the first set tie break by 4-2 until Roberto started attacking every point and went on to win the set in 55 minutes which was longer than the first match itself.
In the second set, Roberto’s smash hit the net cord and went wide as Hubert broke his serve in the first game which was the overall tone of the set. Hubert leveled the score in half an hour as the match now looked in favour of Hurkacz. Roberto became more defensive in the set as he came to the net thrice, in the previous set he did the same 11 times and ended up doing 16 times in the third set. In the final set, Roberto had three match points before the tie break but Hurkacz’s skill at the net saved him. In the tiebreak Hurkacz again came into the front and saved two more match points until a forehand volley went into the net as Spain won the tie and the team mobbed Roberto as he walked in the box.
In the final doubles match, Poland signed off with a victory as Zielinski and Szymon Walkow won the last two sets after losing the first one to Pedro Martinez and Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
Pablo defeated Zielinski 6-2, 6-1, Roberto defeated Hurkacz 7-6(8-6), 6-2, 7-6(7-5), Walkow and Zielinski defeated Martinez and Ramos-Vinolas 4-6, 6-3, 10-6.
Also read: Russia prevail over Italy to reach semi finals of ATP Cup
