Czechs edge Swiss in longest ever Davis Cup match
Date published :
02 Feb 2013 - 20:17:20
The Czech Republic's Tomas Berdych and Lukas Rosol on Saturday beat Stanislas Wawrinka and Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland in the longest Davis Cup rubber of all time that took 7 hours and two minutes.
The 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 24-22 win surpassed the previous record in the tournament when John McEnroe needed 6 hours and 22 minutes to beat Mats Wilander 9-7, 6-2, 15-17, 3-6, 8-6 in the tie between the United States and Sweden in 1982.
Chiudinelli double-faulted on match point after he and his partner had earlier saved 12 match points.
The win gave the defending champions Czechs a 2-1 lead in the World Group clash ahead of Sunday's reverse singles with the winners to play either Kazakhstan or Austria in the quarter-finals in April.
The previous longest doubles match in Davis Cup was 6 hours 20 minutes which occurred in 2002 when Lucas Arnold and David Nalbandian of Argentina beat Russia's Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Marat Safin 6-4, 6-4, 5-7, 3-6, 19-17.
