Jan-Lennard Struff and Florian Mayer survive scares to put Germany in a commanding position in their world group play off tie with Poland.
The first rubber in Berlin saw world number 67 Jan-Lennard Struff play world number 277 Kamil Majchrzak. On paper this match should be a straight sets win for the German, but this match proved anything but that. As Majchrzak would take the match to Struff and winning the first set on a tiebreak 10-8. Struff would then recover and use his power game to win the second set 6-3, breaking the pole twice. This cat and mouse chase would continue as the 20 year old pole would maintain his high level that he played in the previous two sets, to take the third set 7-5. But in the fourth set the tide would turn as Majchrzak would suffer from cramp and the match was finished. Struff would take the next two sets 6-2 6-1 to complete the victory and secure the first rubber for Germany. A harsh lesson for the pole to learn.
The second rubber saw world number 59 Florian Mayer face world number 329 Hubert Hurkacz. The first set saw Hurkacz play some scintillating tennis to take the first set 6-1. The second set looked like it would go the way of the pole as he broke the german’s serve and played much better than Mayer. But the experienced German dug deep and saved two set points in the tiebreak and eventually took the set 7-6(6). Mayer now looked comfortable and broke once at the end of the third set to win it 6-4. Mayer broke early in the fourth to have the early break, but Hurkacz would dig deep by holding several tight service games, and that would pay off as he broke back for 5-5. But Mayer broke straight back and would serve out the match, to win it 1-6 7-6(6) 6-4 7-5 in just under three hours. Another harsh lesson learnt by the young polish teenager.
The two young poles will have to bounce back as they will have to mentally and physically recover for Sunday’s reverse singles. But on Saturday Poland will have a chance to pull a rubber back, as they go in as favourites for the doubles. The experienced team of Lukasz Kubot and Marcin Matkowski take on Daniel Brands and doubles specialist Daniel Masur. But there is a possibility Jan-Lennard Struff could enter the doubles, as Germany look to finish the tie off on Saturday and keep their place in the world group.
