Czech Us Out

Your Weekly Tennis Update

By Mason Walling

AAP/Image: Getty Images

The Czech Republic won the Davis Cup title this week in dramatic fashion for the second year in a row. 

With the Cup tied at two matches apiece, Radek Stepanek defeated Serbian Dusan Lajovic in the decisive final match by a score of 6-3, 6-1, 6-1.  The 23-year-old Lajovic was seriously overmatched in this final, as he faced the journeyman Stepanek, who has been on the professional tour for 18 years. 

It’s safe to say that Lajovic was a bit ill-prepared for competition of this magnitude.  He had never even played a best of five-sets match on the tour before, much less competed in the Davis Cup.  Lajovic’s world ranking coming into the match was 117, compared to his opponent, Stepanek, who came in at No. 44.  In fact, the only reason that Lajovic played in this match was because of a heel injury that sidelined Janko Tipsarevic.

Serbian Viktor Troicki was also absent from the Davis Cup, as he is currently serving a 12-month suspension for violating the ATP’s doping policies.  It would be easy for the Serbs to chalk this loss up to having to play without their second and third best players.  Missing Tipsarevic and Troicki undoubtedly did make a different, but Novak Djokovic is catching some flack over this loss.

The criticism is not stemming from Djokovic’s play; he actually defeated both Stepanek and Tomas Berdych in singles matches to account for Serbia’s only two points.  The complaints are due to the fact that Djokovic did not play in the doubles match against Berdych and Stepanek.  Instead, Serbia decided to let Nenad Zimonjic and Ilija Bozoljac take on the Czech duo, and they ultimately paid the price for it.

This decision was made by the Serbian captain Bogdan Obradovic after discussing the matter with Djokovic himself.  It is not a certainty that Serbia would have been able to defeat the Czech Republic even with Djokovic playing doubles, but you have to think that they would have had a better chance.

“Could have been” and “what ifs” aside, Stepanek deserves all the credit of coming through for his country when it really mattered in a high-pressure match.

Interestingly enough, it was Stepanek who stepped up for the Czechs last year by winning the last match of the Davis Cup over Nicholas Almagro to put Spain away.  2012 and 2013 are the only years in which the Czech Republic has won the Davis Cup since becoming an independent nation.