At the end of Day 1, the US looked to be in great shape to sweep the Brazilians.  Sam Querrey beat Bellucci more easily than expected backed up by great serving.  John Isner also had a solid win over Thiago Alves, ranked about 140.  Most felt that the Bryan brothers would seal the deal with a win in doubles.  On paper, the Brazilians looked overmatched.

Turns out the Brazilians came to play. The highly favored doubles fell to a resilient Brazilian team of Melo and Soares in five sets, and it fell to Isner to see if he could close out the tie in four matches.  The US had not played a fifth rubber in over a dozen years, either winning in 3 or 4 or losing that way.

In the reverse singles, Isner got out to a good lead, breaking twice to take the first set, 6-2.  Bellucci is better off the ground than Isner, but struggled a bit on return of serve.  As he read the serve better, he was able to get a break, then do a great job, from there on in, of holding his serve.  He was not to be broken for the rest of the match.

Even so, Isner was able to push the third set to a tiebreak, and won that.  But, as the match moved forward, Isner found it tougher to chase down shots and control his forehand which often landed in the net.  Meanwhile, Bellucci was controlling shots better.  Bellucci took sets 4 and 5 comfortably with a break in each set.

Afterwards, Isner berated himself in a press conference where he said he had lost confidence, that his 5 set record was awful, and that he needed to figure out how to deal with it.

That left Sam Querrey to face of Thiago Alves, a player around 30 years old, whose highest rank was maybe 65 and whose rank was about 140.  Although he had only won a handful of matches on the main tour, Alves has primarily played in the Challenger tour where he’s won quite a few titles.

Even so, on paper, he should have been outgunned by Sam Querrey.  With more than 100 spots between the two, they would have never played each other given that Querrey plays on the main tour most of the time.  Still, this is Davis Cup, and in Davis Cup brings out the best in people.  Thiago Alves was enthusiastic from the get-go trying to use his forehand and steadiness to bother Querrey.

Querrey broke early in the first set, but Alves broke back, and then broke later in the set as Querrey had trouble controlling his shots.  Although he served well, in terms of first serve points won, he wasn’t serving as high a percentage as he wanted.  But, Querrey started to play longer points, and not get as much into being the aggressor waiting for errors from Alves.

Querrey calmly took sets 2 and 3 with a break each.  Querrey was also up a break in the fourth, but Alves broke back and forced a tiebreak.  Alves made a few too many errors and let Querrey stay ahead.  On match point, Querrey hit three lets in a row, then got the serve in, and won when a shot flew long.  While Alves buried himself under a towel, sad at his inability to topple a player ranked 100 spots ahead of him, the Americans were genuinely impressed by the fight of the Brazilians.

Canada vs. Spain

Perhaps only the French and Spanish can field up to three world-class Davis Cup teams, so deep is the talent in both countries.  So, it was a bit odd that Spain sent a team that would have been a “C” team.  If Nadal and Ferrer is an “A” team, and Verdasco and Almagro is the “B” team, then dipping down to play Garcia-Lopez, Granollers, and Albert Ramos is really pushing how far down the roster they could play and still expect to win.  Until you get to Almagro level, you have to imagine Raonic could beat whoever Spain could field, and they could get two wins from the young Canadian.

As it turns out, these fears were warranted.  No one expected veteran Frank Dancevic to dominate Granollers and give Canada a point to go with Raonic’s point to give a 2-0 lead.  The Spaniards were almost in trouble in doubles with Granollers and Lopez, winners at London, down 2 sets to 1 to Nestor and Pospisil.  But they came back and took the next two sets.

The Spanish team decided to go with Garcia-Lopez in the reverse singles to sub for Granollers.  Didn’t matter much as Raonic won handily to move Canada into the quarterfinals.

Switzerland vs. Czech Republic

Wawrinka is having a tough month.  He lost a 5-setter to Djokovic.  He lost the longest match in Davis Cup history in doubles to the Czech Republic.  And now, he had to beat Tomas Berdych (who also played doubles) just to keep Switzerland in the tie.

Turns out, no go.  Berdych took the first two sets, lost the third, and needed a fourth set tiebreak to beat Stan Wawrinka.  The Swiss were able to garner a win with Laaksonen beating Vesely, a top junior player, in three sets, in a meaningless match.

Italy vs. Croatia

This match came down to the fifth match as well.  Heading into Day 3, Italy lead 2-1 with a critical doubles win.  Marin Cilic made easy work of Andreas Seppi, so it was Ivan Dodig to face Fabio Fognini who had rested on Day 1 so he could focus on singles.  This seemed to help as Fognini beat Dodig in four sets after dropping the first set.

Other ties

The rest of the ties were already decided on Day 2, except Kazakhstan against Austria.  Golubev beat Melzer in four sets to claim the tie.