To international sports fans, the headline of France v.Croatia might have brought back feelings of this year’s World Cup final where France defeated Croatia 4-2. Such a defeat to Croatia would not be seen twice in 2018 as they outplayed the 2017 defending champions in their own venue in Lille, France.
The French team was down after the very first game as Borna Coric broke Jeremy Chardy’s serve to open up the first rubber. Continuing to display superior tennis on the indoor red clay, Coric sealed out the victory 6-2,7-5, 6-4.
The second rubber featured two titans of the game inJo-Wilfred Tsonga and Marin Cilic. In what should have been a mouth-watering affair, Marin Cilic disappointed French fans with a straight-forward 6-3, 7-5,6-4 victory over Tsonga.
Now losing 0-2, France’s hope to stay alive was resting on the shoulders of their accomplished doubles team Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut. However, they had no easy matchup as they were pitted against equally accomplished doubles players in Ivan Dodig and Mate Pavic. Losing this match would have given Croatia a blowout victory.
The match turned out to be the thriller of the event. Everything was on even-terms in the first set until a backhand from Ivan Dodig hit the net cord and sat up for a routine put away shot, allowing France to steal the crucial break of serve. France did not squander the break and took the set 6-4. The second set looked similar to the first until a poor service game from Ivan Dodig with two double faults handed France their second service break. France would take the second set 6-4 as well. All hope for winning the match was lost for the Croatians when they gave up an immediate break of serve in the third set and eventually fell to a 3-1 hole in the set. However, it was at this point the Croatians dug their heels into the red clay and rallied five consecutive games. The Croatians had all the momentum and took third set 6-3. In the fourth set, the match was extremely tight and France eventually found themselves with three match points at 0-40, 5-4 in the set. Stellar serving from Mate Pavic saved all three match points and Croatia held serve for 5-5. The set eventually went to a tiebreak and France dug deep to pull out the set, and the match 6-4, 6-4, 3-6,7-6(3). The French hope was still alive as Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut pushed the matchup to the singles rubbers.
The fourth rubber featured Marin Cilic and Lucas Pouille in their third career matchup. Cilic went into the match never losing to Pouillein their past meetings, and he used that confidence to muster a 7-6(3), 6-3,6-3 victory. Cilic raised his hands triumphantly as his win officially made Croatia the 2018 Davis Cup Champion.
Forty Love of Tennis 