Felix Auger-Aliassime, Denis Shapovalov guide Canada to winning start in Davis Cup Finals Group Stage | ATP Tour
Matching Report
Felix, Shapovalov guides Canada to early win in Davis Cup Finals Group Stage
Germany beat Slovakia in Group C
September 10, 2024
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Denis Shapovalov playing in Manchester.
By ATP staff
Canada It started by winning Group D of the Davis Cup Finals on Tuesday in Manchester, where Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov won in singles to give their country a 2-1 victory. In Argentina.
In the opening match of the day, Shapovalov cruised past Francisco Cerundolo 7-5, 6-3 to earn victory over the No. 31 player in the PIF ATP Rankings after one hour and 37 minutes.
Shapovalov converted all four break points he collected on Cerundolo’s indirect game, which made 51 unforced errors.
World No. 21 Auger-Aliassime then entered the court and passed Sebastian Baez 6-3, 6-3. Auger-Aliassime suffered a disappointing first-round exit at the US Open last month but looked in control on the hard indoor courts in Manchester.
Argentina’s doubles champions Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni then cruised to a 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 win over Shapovalov and Vasek Pospisil after winning 14 of their 16 break points.
The Group Stage takes place in four cities, from Tuesday to Sunday, Bologna, Manchester, Valencia and Zhuhai. Each group has four countries, the top two countries in each group will advance to the Final 8, which will be held in Malaga on 19-24 November.
Australia and France split the first singles matches in Group B. Thanasi Kokkinakis won a hard-fought match against Arthur Fils 7-6(4), 7-6(3) before Ugo Humbert leveled with a 6-3, 6- 2. against Alexei Popyrin, who stunned Novak Djokovic at the US Open en route to the fourth round. Humbert won 80 percent of his first points compared to Popyrin’s 59 percent.
Just four days after winning the US Open doubles title with Jordan Thompson, Max Purcell teamed up with Matthew Ebden to make Australia 2-1 with a 7-5, 5-7, 6-3 win over Pierre -Hugues Herbert and Edouard Roger- The Vasselin.
Strong performance to level 🇫🇷@HumbertUgo beats Popyrin 6-3 6-2!@DavisCup | #DavisCup
pic.twitter.com/glIWT9GY6a– ATP Tour (@atptour) September 10, 2024
Belgium and the Netherlands They also drew 1-1 in Group D where they faced each other twice. Botic van de Zandschulp started the day by defeating Raphael Collignon 7-5, 7-6(6), led by 19 winners.
Van de Zandschulp, who upset Carlos Alcaraz at Flushing Meadows, lost to Collignon in the ATP Challenger Tour final in Luedenscheid last month. The 28-year-old will partner Wesley Koolhof in the doubles against Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen.
Zizou Bergs of Belgium defeated Tallon Griekspoor 6-2, 6-7(3), 6-3 after two hours and 12 minutes. The Dutchman raced to a 5/0 lead in the second-set tie-break and soon after sent the match to a decider. Bergs’ one break in the final set was enough for the 25-year-old to win.
In Group C, In Germany shrugged off the sweltering heat and humidity in Zhuhai to complete a 3-0 opening day victory Slovakia and made a flying start to its campaign.
Playing without their top four players apart from Alexander Zverev, Jan-Lennard Struff, Dominik Koepfer and Daniel Altmaier in Zhuhai this week, Michael Kohlmann’s side still managed to produce a nationally-worthy result in the match, dropping one. three games are played on Tuesday.
Maximilian Marterer defeated Lukas Klein 6-4 7-5 in the first match of the day before Yannick Hanfmann shook off the rust with a 3-6 6-3 7-6(3) victory over Jozef Kovalik to put endurance beyond doubt.
The ever-reliable duo of Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz completed a 3-0 sweep with a 7-5 6-3 victory over Klein and Igor Zelenay in doubles.
“I am very happy. We worked well today,” explained German captain Michael Kohlmann. “In every game we have been trying to find ways to win in one way or another. Yannick maybe wasn’t playing his best tennis but he kept fighting and found a way to win the match, and Maxi gave us a good start.
“He came out very good, very focused, very focused. It was important for the whole team to start with a win.”
Contributions from daviscup.com to the report.
