Argentina took a 2-0 lead over the Czech Republic on the first day of the Qualifiers series for the 2022 Davis Cup Finals. In the first point, Sebastian Baez debuted with a solid win over Jiri Lehecka by 7-6 (7-4) and 6-4. And then, Diego Schwartzman, 14th in the world, put up a very tough match, in which he started very weakly and gave up the first set, and ended up defeating Tomas Machac (131st and second racket of the Europeans.
El Peque came out on the court as a great favourite, but he played a very bad first set, in which he never entered the match. From the beginning he was overtaken by a rival who was more aggressive and made little mistakes. The man from Buenos Aires, on top of that, never found a way around his own service: he won just 9 of the 16 points he played with the first and 2 of the 8 he played with the second.
Machac hit a break in the opening game, repeated the strike in the fifth and went on to lead 4-1. Schwartzman saved one of the breaks, to close 2-4. But the Czech didn’t give him a chance to celebrate: he stole his serve again to take a 5-2 lead and, although he gave up a couple of break points in the next game, he held on and closed out the set without much trouble.
The Czech struck again at the start of the second set: he broke in the first game and went ahead 2-0. But when it seemed that the visitor was starting to get on track in that set as well (he also had a break point in the third), Schwartzman reacted.
With the encouragement of the public -and under the gaze of Carlos Tévez and Gabriela Sabatini, special guests at the BALTC-, El Peque began to hit the ball much better and totally changed his face. Visibly more comfortable on the court, he became more confident with his serve and began hitting shots that hadn’t gone in before.
On the other side of the net, Machac loosened the pressure and accumulated more and more errors. Thus, the man from Buenos Aires managed to recover his serve in the fourth game (2-2), broke again in the sixth (4-2) and confirmed the advantage to stay 5-2 up, to be one game away from taking the partial.
And in a long eighth game, with Marach on serve, Peque closed the set with a new break.
Loose and safe with his tennis, the Argentine started with the entire last set. It is true that he had a hard time winning the first game with his service, because Machac gave him a fight and, although much more erratic than before, he never stopped looking. But with the 1-0 in his favor, El Peque got bigger and got a break in the second to go up 2-0, just as the sun began to shine on the court.
The entire Argentine bench accompanied the good moment of Peque, singing and encouraging in the breaks, mobilized by the captain himself, Guillermo Coria, who was seen waving his hands and making gestures to his other players so that they do not remain silent or sit down .
The Czech was not willing to give up the game and continued to fight. He had a break chance in the third game, but Schwartzman picked it up and won the game for 3-0. Machac then took his serve game, closed the gap (1-3) and cut the Argentine’s streak of nine consecutive won service games. And he surprised with a break in the fifth (2-3).
Schwartzman did not lose focus. He continued to be deep in the match and stole the Czech’s serve in the next game to make it 4-2. He then stretched the difference to 5-2 and put all the pressure on his opponent, who came out in the eighth game to serve with no margin for error.
Machac is 21 years old and is 131st in the ranking. AP Photo/Gustavo Garello
Machac paid him back with the same coin: he won his game comfortably and left Peque with the responsibility of closing the match.
Schwartzman did not spare. As had happened throughout the match, the Czech did not make it easy for him and was about to steal his serve. But the man from Buenos Aires raised that break point and ended up closing the match on the second chance he had.
On Saturday the action will begin with the doubles duel between Horacio Zeballos (five in the world in that specialty) and Máximo González (24th) against Zdenek Kolar and Vit Kopriva, starting at 11 o’clock. And it will continue with the last two singles: Schwartzman- Lehecka and Baez-Machac.
A victory in the doubles would seal the victory of Argentina, which would thus ensure a place in the Finals, which will be played between September (the round robin) and November (from the quarterfinals onwards) in venues to be confirmed. In that instance, Croatia, finalist of the last edition, and the guests Serbia and Great Britain are already there.
Reigning champion Russia was also qualified but will not be able to defend the title after being banned from all team competition by the ITF earlier this week due to that country’s invasion of Ukraine.