Russia Leads Argentina 2-1 in Davis Cup Final

Posted on December 3, 2006

Safin Leads Russians to 2-1 Lead in Davis Cup

Russia's Marat Safin redeemed himself Saturday in the Davis Cup doubles final, teaming with Dmitry Tursunov to destroy the Argentine combo of David Nalbandian and Agustin Calleri 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 to give the homecountry squad a 2-1 lead heading into Sunday play at Moscow.

It was a turnaround from Friday play, with Nalbandian, who pounded Safin in singles, slumping and the big Russian finding his range.

"Today he [Nalbandian] just didn't motivate himself enough," said Safin, getting in a dig at the top Argentine who predicted dominance after beating Safin Friday. "I think he had no emotion left, didn't take his chances. He didn't return well. He made some easy errors from the baseline. He helped us a lot to win."

Nalbandian and Calleri were 2-0 this year as a team heading into the match, but Nalbandian in particular started cold and never warmed up.

"In the beginning, we couldn't make any return," Nalbandian said. "We didn't play many points when they served. Maybe they got out a little of confidence on the match. Then I didn't serve very good in the beginning, so it was tough."

Safin said he knew on Friday he would be playing the Saturday doubles, it was just a matter of who his partner would be.

"We crossed out [Nikolay] Davydenko because he has to play on the third day," Safin said. "We also crossed out the candidacy of [Mikhail] Youzhny because Youzhny still has some problems with his leg, it hurts. We didn't know whether Youzhny could withstand a five setter. Dima [Tursunov] was left. We played together a couple times before. We didn't expect to win, but we tried to catch our luck. It worked. We did catch our luck."

Now Nalbandian is in the position of having to turn around his fortunes in a must-win match on Sunday against Davydenko. If Nalbandian can lengthen the tie to a final match, Safin is scheduled against Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela.