Austria secured an unlikely win against a favoured home team in Russia in the Davis Cup. Austria secured the win in the Luzhniki Sports Arena 3-1.
Russia had a strong team that featured Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev, Karen Khachanov, and Evgeny Donskoy.
Meanwhile, Austria were without their sole Top 10 star Dominic Thiem, who is still recovering from injury. Instead, Austria relied on the likes of former French Open semi-finalist Jurgen Melzer, Sebastian Ofner, and Dennis Novak.
It was Novak who got the surprising result underway, as he defeated World No.35 Andrey Rublev. Novak, who is ranked just inside the Top 200 took a straight sets win.
Daniil Medvedev appeared to restore normal proceedings by thrashing Ofner 6-1, 6-2. However, the Austrian doubles specialist team of Philipp Oswald and Melzer defeated Khachanov and Rublev in straight sets.
Melzer then played in the singles as Russia nominated Evgeny Donskoy. It was Melzer who sealed an excellent win for Austria 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. It was just Melzer’s second singles match of 2018. His only previous match in singles was a loss to Marco Cecchinato in a clay Challenger event a few weeks ago.
Meanwhile, 2012 and 2013 champions Czech Republic also won their tie with Israel 3-1. A team led by Jiri Vesely and Vaclav Safranek proved too strong for a Israel team who had little depth beyond veteran Dudi Sela.
In a clash between two economic giants, India defeated China 3-2 in Tianjin. The highlight was a record breaking win for India’s doubles specialist Leander Paes.
