Davis Cup 2012: Americans Sweep The Swiss In First-Round Upset

No Djokovic? No problem.

At least, that’s how today went for the world No. 1 Novak Djokovic’s country in Davis Cup play. Serbia stunned Russia with a 3-2 victory to advance to the quarterfinal round of the world team tournament.

Though the United States had clinched its first round upset over Switzerland in the 2012 Davis Cup the day before, Sunday’s matches — Ryan Harrison against Michael Lammer, John Isner against Marco Chiudinelli — still went off without a hitch, the four competitors playing for personal and national pride. Again, the United States managed to come out on topboth times, finishing off its 5-0 sweep of the favored Swiss team.

Roger Federer, Mardy Fish and Stanislaw Wawrinka sat out Sunday’s inconsequential matches — all three not only competed in the first round of singles play but also competed in Saturday’s deciding doubles match — so it took a little of the luster off the wins, but a 5-0 victory is a 5-0 victory. The Yanks will play the winner of the yet-to-be-decided Canada-France pairing.

Reigning champion Spain showed up again in 2012 Davis Cup play. The Spaniards were out to an early 2-0 leadwith a pair of opening round singles victories Friday. Spain is playing Kazakhstan.

Juan Carlos Ferrero gave Spain it’s first step in its hopeful return to glory with a four hour and 28 minute five-set match against Mikhail Kukushkin. The final score was 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 4-6, 6-4. Nicolas Almagro took four sets to defeat his Kazakhstan opponent, Andrey Golubev, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1, 6-1.

Just a couple weeks after losing in the semifinals of the 2012 Australian Open, Roger Federer fell again, though this time against slightly less marquee opponent. Not to take anything away from John Isner, who came into 2012 Davis Cup match ranked No. 17 in the world, but Federer rarely ever succumbs to anyone not named Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal.

The No. 3-ranked Swiss looked much like his usual self in the first set, winning all but three of his serves for a 6-4 set victory. He faltered some in the second set, however. Isner broke Federer in the sixth game on his way to taking the set 6-3. Both players held serve in the third set, but Federer struggled to keep his first serves in late in the tiebreak. Isner took the set despite winning 44 points to 45 for Federer.

The first U.S. men’s rubber match against Switzerland took place on Day 1 of competition in the 2012 Davis Cup in Fribourg, Switzerland. The first match pitted No. 8 Mardy Fish against Stanislas Wawrinka. Fish was hoping to rebound from his last tournament outing, when he was upset early and bounced from the 2012 Australian Open last month.

The match between Fish and Wawrinka went back and forth before culminating in an epic fifth set. Finally, after four hours and 26 minutes, Fish picked up the win, 6-2, 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 9-7.

In 2001, a 19-year-old Roger Federer helped Switzerland to a 3-2 victory in his hometown of Basel against the United States. Eleven years later, a 30-year-old Federer, who has 16 Grand Slam titles to his name, is looking to bring the victory back to Switzerland.

Switzerland and their 16-time Grand Slam singles player will take on the United States and their zero-time Grand Slam singles players in the first round match of Davis Cup play Friday. The meeting is the fourth between the two countries.