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Mazel Tove to the Israeli Davis Cup Team

The Israeli Men's Tennis Davis Cup team advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time since 1987, ousting seven time champion Sweden 3-2, in a stirring five game match. Sweden may have been done in by its craven surrender to political blackmail in its decision to hold the match before a handpicked crowd of only 300 spectators, claiming that closing the arena to spectators was necessary due to threat of violence from anti-Israel groups.

Israel entered yesterday down 2-1. Dudi Sela leveled the series in Sunday's first match by wearing out Thomas Johansson 3-6, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. That set the stage for Harel Levy's dramatic five set 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 3-6, 8-6 victory over Andreas Vinciguerra. Vinciguerra saved two match points but botched a forehand to lose his serve and a chance to play Russia in the quarterfinals.

Levy suggested the decision to close the match to the public backfired on the Swedes because it deprived them of the raucous backing that home teams normally enjoy.
"Maybe they lost this tie from the lack of support from the spectators," he said. "After all it affected them more than it affected us. Hopefully it won't happen again."

Israel moves on to take on Russia in the quarterfinals. Russia defeated Romania 4-1.

Andy Ram, a member of the Israeli Davis Cup team and the player who was given a visa to play in Dubai just one week after Shahar Pe'er was denied one, wrote this column for Ynet.com on his experience in Sweden and what playing before an empty stadium meant. It's worth a look.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on March 09, 2009 (boomark / email).