Berdych Takes One

My fear came true today. Clearly, I am for Team France and have bought into the whole “New Musketeers” thing. I like the fact that France, like Spain, has a stable of young, top twenty players, and hopefully one of them wins a grand slam some day.

That being said, Tomas Berdych did indeed cause trouble for Team France. He beat Simon in four sets 7-6(3) 4-6 7-6(2) 6-3. Simon again looked irritated, frustrated and uncomfortable. Berdych took advantaged of the situation and was never really in any danger of losing.

From the start of the match, Simon was under pressure. The Frenchman managed to get broken during his first service game. While serving for the set, Berdych lost serve in game eleven but managed to pull out the tiebreak a few games later. Simon did take the second set, and it looked like he was back in the hunt. The two players traded breaks in the third set, and then Berdych snuck off with the third set in the tiebreak. The fourth set quickly went downhill for the Frenchman where Berdych broke him three times.

Luckily, Tsonga was able to beat Radek Stepanek 7-5 6-2 7-6(1). The Frenchman overpowered Stepanek and beat the Czech in straight sets to take the match and level the tie at 1-1.

With a shaky Simon, the French really need to win the doubles match tomorrow to give them some breathing room. French team captain, Guy Forget shares my concern:

“One-all is a good score. I knew that we would not win 3-0. Let’s hope that we win the doubles and then at 2-1 we should be able to win one of two matches on Sunday,” said French team captain Guy Forget.

Hopefully, Simon can shake off the loss today and take Stepanek in the fourth rubber on Sunday. More importantly, let’s hope Llodra and Gasquet can pull out the third rubber and put France in the lead.
(images: AFP)