Yesterday Radek Stepanek cruised to a straight sets victory over Dusan Lajovic to win the decisive rubber in the Davis Cup Final and to retain the title for the Czech Republic.
The best-of-five series ended 3-2 with both Serbia wins coming courtesy of Novak Djokovic, but in the three other rubbers which the world number two didn’t play in Serbia lost comfortably (all in straight sets) with Tomas Berdych beating Lajovic whilst the same man teamed up with Stepanek to see off Ilija Bozoljac and Nenad Zimonjic in the doubles rubber.
The Czech Republic’s first Davis Cup win came in 1980 when, still called Czechoslovakia at the time, Ivan Lendl and Tomas Smid teamed up to cruise past the Italians 4-1 in the final. However, no other success came in the competition until 2012 when Stepanek and Berdych teamed up yet again and just managed to scrape past the Spanish duo of David Ferrer and Nicolas Almagro with a 3-2 scoreline.
World number 44 Stepanek would have been playing against world number 36 Janko Tipsarevic had injury not caused the Serb to pull out late on Thursday night and he tore world number 117 Lajovic to pieces; totally controlling the match from start to finish.
Stepanek’s main threat as a tennis player comes from strong baseline shots with a lot of power as well as skilful volleys at the net to outwit his opponent and he combined the two to perfection in this particular match. Although his career has brought him much success, including five singles titles, seventeen doubles titles and two doubles major titles, he described it as his proudest achievement;
“To win two Davis Cups is my greatest achievement. To defend this trophy means the world to us.”
In Stepanek’s other singles match he was comfortably beaten 5-7, 1-6, 4-6 by Novak Djokovic and partner Tomas Berdych, so often the tormenter of top players throughout his career could do nothing to prevent Djokovic from beating him in straight sets, but the world number seven’s win against Djokovic’s teammate Lajovic meant that the Czech Republic’s comfortable win in the doubles rubber won them the trophy.
Djokovic remained gracious in defeat, saying; “It was so close, so tense, especially in the second set where one point decided it. It could easily have gone the other way.”
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