(Photo credit: Danielle Parhizkaran-USA TODAY Sports)
Chile, France, Serbia and the Netherlands won on Tuesday on the first day of the Davis Cup finals group stage.
Chile beat Sweden 3-0 to start the Group A match in Bologna, Italy. France beat Switzerland 3-0 in Manchester, England, in Group B.
Serbia topped South Korea 3-0 in Group C in Valencia, Spain, and the Netherlands topped Finland 2-1 in Group D in Split, Croatia.
The Davis Cup group games take place from Tuesday to Sunday in four cities across Europe. The top two teams in each round-robin group advance to the knockout stage in Malaga, Spain, November 21-26.
For Chile on Tuesday, Cristian Garin beat Sweden’s Leo Borg 7-6 (6), 3-6, 7-5, and Nicolas Jarry eased past Elias Ymer 6-2, 6-4. Marcelo Tomas Barrios Vera and Alejandro Tabilo cleaned house with their 6-4, 7-5 doubles victory over Filip Bergevi and Andre Göransson.
Adrian Mannarino and Ugo Humbert sealed France’s win early as Mannarino eased past Switzerland’s Dominic Stricker 3-6, 6-1, 6-4, and Humbert topped former world No. 3 Stan Wawrinka 6-4, 6-4.
Wawrinka teamed up with Marc-Andrea Huesler to try and earn a point for the Swiss, but France’s team of Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin won their doubles match 6-2, 6-2.
After Dusan Lajovic beat Seongchan Hong 6-4, 7-6 (3), Laslo Djere outlasted Soonwoo Kwon 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 to earn the match for Serbia.
Serbia’s Nikola Cacic and Miomir Kecmanovic rallied to beat Jisung Nam and Minkyu Song 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5) in the doubles to take all three matches.
Finland opened its match against the Dutch with a point, as Otto Virtanen beat Botic Van de Zandschulp 7-6 (0), 6-4. But Tallon Griekspoor tied the Netherlands even with a 7-6 (7), 6-3 win over Emil Ruusuvuori.
The match was decided in doubles, when Wesley Koolhof and Matwe Middelkoop of the Netherlands beat Harri Heliovaara and Patrik Niklas-Salminen 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-3. The Dutch team won 55 of 66 first service points (83.3 percent) en route to victory.
The U.S. will be in action Wednesday against Croatia in Group D. Defending champion Canada also plays its first game of the stage Wednesday in Group A against Italy.
–Field Level Media
Source: sn.dk