By Tennis Now | Saturday, September 15, 2018
Julien Benneteau and Nicolas Mahut swept doubles sending France into its second straight Davis Cup final.
Photo credit: @FFTennis
Julien Benneteau dropped the hammer to drive France to its second straight Davis Cup final.
Hammering a clean return pass, Benneteau tossed his racquet aside and shed tears embracing partner Nicolas Mahut after the pair dispatched Marcel Granollers and Feliciano Lopez, 6-0, 6-4, 7-6 (7), staking France to an insurmountable 3-0 lead over Spain in the best-of-five match semifinal in Lille.
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The French pair won nine of the first 10 games then delivered clutch shot-making to take the third-set tie break.
The 36-year-old Benneteau, who officially retired from the ATP Tour at the US Open, came back for a stirring Davis Cup performance today.
Defending Davis Cup champion France powered to its seventh straight victory becoming the first nation since the Czech Republic in 2013 to advance to back-to-back finals.
In 2013, Radek Stepanek clinched the Czech Republic's second straight Davis Cup championship defeating Dusan Lajovic in the decisive fifth match to lift the visitors to a 3-2 victory over host Serbia.
Top-seeded France awaits the winner of the semifinal between host Croatia and the United States. If Croatia, which leads 2-0, advances to its third Davis Cup final France would play host in the November 23rd-25th final.
If the United States rallies past Croatia, it would host France in the November final.
Playing without world No. 1 Rafael Nadal, Spain sent veterans Granollers and Lopez out to try to stay alive after singles victories from Benoit Paire and Lucas Pouille yesterday staked the host to a 2-0 lead.
Arguably the best player without an ATP singles title, Benneteau returned brilliantly from the ad side as France converted five of six break points.
Breezing through a shutout opening set, Mahut and Benneteau won 12 of 13 points played on their serves in the first set.
French fans were screaming support as the home side broke for a 2-1 second-set lead then held at 15 to back up the break.
Facing a 3-5 deficit in the tie break, Spain came back to level.
Granollers saved the first match point with a biting serve into Benneteau's hip, but a tight Granollers double-faulted to hand the host a second match point.
Again, Granollers was up to the test, flicking a forehand return winner to level.
Continuing to pressure net, France coaxed a volley error for a third match point.
This time, Benneteau blasted that backhand return crosscourt, tossed his racquet aside and embraced Mahut in elation.
French captain Yannick Noah pressed all the right buttons in this tie starting Davis Cup debutante Paire, who steamrolled a gimpy Pablo Carreno Busta in the opener. Davis Cup hero Lucas Pouille edged Roberto Bautista Agut in a three-hour, 41 minute battle to put France up 2-0 yesterday.
It was Mahut's sixth straight Davis Cup doubles win. His last Davis Cup doubles loss came in the 2016 semifinals when Croatia's Marin Cilic and Ivan Dodig defeated Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert helping Croatia to a 3-2 semifinal victory.