Guy Forget, chief coach of the French national tennis team, plays with the Labrador retriever of his trainee - French tennis player Amélie Mauresmo - during the training session held in the Paris sports complex Bercy in the run up to the Davis Cup finals.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Thought-Provoking Misinformation
// Russia and France captains exchanged intrigues
Davis Cup quarterfinals between national teams of Russia and France start in Moscow on Friday. Out of all quarterfinal matches, this one in Moscow is the most intriguing. Tennis players will not play the key role in it. Old rivals, team captains Shamil Tarpishchev and Guy Forget will do it. They spent the entire Thursday on misinforming the opponent.
The draw for the match was held Thursday. The daily alignment usually becomes more or less clear after it. Yet, Shamil Tarpishchev and Guy Forget chose such configurations of their teams this time, as to only mix everything up. Actually, it couldn’t be different, considering how well the rivals have studied each other.
Tarpishchev took an extraordinary step. He did not settle on the seemingly irreplaceable Marat Safin for singles (Nikolai Davydenko and Mikhail Yuzhny will play singles), preferring to pair him with Igor Andreev. Safin characterized the effectiveness of such duet quite well: “We played together once, without winning a set.” Forget surprised us as well. He decided simply not to settle on one of his most experienced players, Arnaud Clément, who is especially strong in doubles. France captain too chose a rather risky variant for singles, appointing Richard Gasquet and Paul-Henry Mathieu (Sébastien Grosjean and Michael Llodra will play doubles). Yet, Gasquet lost to Davydenko six matches out of eight, while Mathieu has Yuzhny complex. The French player met with the Russian thrice, losing all three matches. There was a very significant one among them, -- the decisive match of Davis Cup finals in 2002. Back then, Yuzhny delivered a powerful blow to Mathieu’s ego, snatching victory from the latter in the match where he was losing 0:2 in sets. By the way, there happened nothing like that in Davis Cup finals’ decisive matches neither before, nor after it. Since that match, Mathieu has not been able to justify the credits given to him, although he was considered a very promising tennis player.
Certainly, Forget was asked why he had decided to weaken the doubles. He replied that he is sick and tired of losing to Russia’s team, and is simply trying to do something new. Indeed, France has been regularly losing to Russia. To be exact, Tarpishchev outplayed Forget thrice (total score is 4:2, Russia’s team leading). “If you remember the doubles, we won the last three matches. Yet, it did not help,” Forget said. “We plunged into fighting right away, gave-it-all on Friday and Saturday, while Russians were waiting off till Sunday, unleashing a fresh player. That is how they were winning. Now I’ll try the same strategy. Certainly, it is risky, but our losing streak needs to be broken up.” So, Forget made it clear that we should not take the draw’s results too seriously. He will be remaking the team in process, anyway.
Tarpishchev said nothing of his plans at all. Russia team captain said that both teams’ winning chances are approximately equal, and that nothing can be predicted. meanwhile, bookmakers stake on Russia’s team. Commenting on sending Safin to doubles, Tarpishchev referred to certain tactic reasons. He did not explain what is behind that wording.
Davydenko and Mathieu will be the first to play on Friday. Yuzhny and Gasquet will play next.
Afsati Dzhusoiti
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 06, 2007
|
|
|
