By Chris Oddo | Saturday, March 7, 2015
The Davis Cup may suffer at times from a lack of participation from its top stars, but in Kraljevo, Serbia, fans were pleased as punch to have the greatest star the country has ever produced bringing home a victory over Croatia on Saturday.
They gave eight-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic a well-deserved hero’s welcome earlier in the week, packing the arena to the rafters just to watch him practice (see this amazing video above--we're talking about practice, people!), and on Friday and Saturday, Djokovic and his teammates gave fans the victory they wanted, placing Serbia back in the quarterfinals of Davis Cup for the fifth time in six years.
Djokovic, called in to replace a tired Viktor Troicki, paired with Nenad Zimonjic to defeat Franco Skugor and Marin Draganja, 6-3, 6-4, 6-1, to give Serbia a spot in July’s Davis Cup World Group quarterfinals, where it will face either Brazil or Argentina.
In Frankfurt, Germany, a lesser-known but widely loved Nicolas Mahut celebrated his Davis Cup debut by pairing with Julien Benneteau to produce a tie-clinching 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Benjamin Becker and Andre Begemann.
The victory gives last year’s runner-up its seventh consecutive win against Germany. The French have not lost to Germany since 1938, and have defeated them four times since 2006. They will face either Great Britain or the U.S. in the quarterfinals.
Here are the scores of the other World Group ties from this weekend:
Australia leads Czech Republic, 2-1
Great Britain leads USA, 2-1
Brazil leads Argentina, 2-1
Belgium leads Switzerland, 2-1
Italy leads Kazakhstan, 2-1
Canada and Japan are tied 1-1, with doubles currently underway.