|
 |
 | | | You are in: Tennis |
|
| | Thursday, 23 May, 2002, 22:55 GMT 23:55 UK US out as Argentina reach final Jose Acasuso helped Argentina reach the final Thursday's World Team Cup results The United States blew their chance to reach the final of the World Team Cup as they lost 3-0 to Sweden in Dusseldorf on Thursday. Despite twice serving for his match against Thomas Johansson, Pete Sampras lost in three sets as the Swedes ended US interest in the competition. The group was won by surprise package Argentina, who pulled off a shock 2-1 win over France. The South Americans were last-minute replacements for Croatia, who were forced to withdraw because of Goran Ivanisevic's shoulder injury.
They will play the winners of the Blue Group, who finish their round-robin on Friday, in Saturday's final. Johansson's win over Sampras was the Swede's first-ever victory against the former world number one. Sampras twice served for the match, at 5-4 and 6-5 in the final set, before losing the final-set tie-break for the second time in three matches. "Once I missed a couple of serves I pressed a bit and missed some back-hands and kind of rushed things," said Sampras. "On clay you can't expect to bomb a couple of serves and hold, and today I got a little impatient." Thomas Enqvist fought off a match point as he beat James Blake 4-6 7-5 7-6 (7/4) in the other singles.
Johansson and Jonas Bjorkman then beat Blake and Jared Palmer 6-3 6-4 in the doubles to complete the whitewash. Argentina were comfortable winners against the French, despite the absence of Juan Ignacio Chela. He was replaced by Jose Acasuso and the substitute proved too strong for Arnaud Clement, winning 7-6 (7/1) 6-3. Guillermo Canas then defeated Nicolas Escude 7-5 6-2 to give the South Americans an unassailable 2-0 lead. Clement and Escude won the doubles against Lucas Arnold and Gaston Etlis to make the final score 2-1 but by then Argentina were home and dry. | |
Top Tennis stories now:  Links to more Tennis stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|  | | | | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
|  E-mail this story to a friend |
| |
| Links to more Tennis stories |
| | | ||
 | ||||
 | | Back to top
| ||
| ------------------------------------------------------------ BBC News >> | BBC Weather >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © MMIII | News Sources | Privacy |
