Argentina beat Georgia 3-0 on the opening day of the ATP Cup, a tournament played on fast courts in the city of Sydney, which opened the 2022 tennis season on the way to the first big event of the year: the Australian Open scheduled in Melbourne from January 17 to 30.
The “albiceleste” team prevailed in the opening of group D, which is also made up of Greece and Poland, with Federico Delbonis victories over Aleksandre Metreveli 6-1 and 6-2 and Diego Schwartzman against Nikoloz Basilashvili by the same score.
The third point was contributed by the duo Máximo González and Andrés Molteni, winners of Saba Purtseladze and Zura Tkemaladze also 6-1 and 6-2.
Argentina’s next match will be against the Greece team in the early hours of this Monday: Delbonis will face Michail Pervolarakis from 3:30, then Schwartzman (13) will play against Stefanos Tsitsipas – number 4 in the world – and finally the doubles with members to designate.
Argentina, led by Alejandro Fabbri, one of the coaches of “Peque” Schwartzman, suffered a last-minute casualty due to the positive Covid-19 registered by Federico Coria on his arrival in Australia. His place was taken by Facundo Bagnis.
For the same reason, the Russian Andrey Rublev (5 in the ranking), the Spanish Rafael Nadal (6) and the Canadian Denis Shapovalov (14) had to drop, while the number 1 in the world, the Serbian Novak Djokovic did not attend for not complying with the health requirements to enter the country.
The group stage of the ATP Cup runs through January 6. In the first semi-final, the winner of group A will meet the winner of group D on January 7. The second semi will be the 8th between the winners of groups B and C. And the final will be held on January 9.
Other results of the first day were: Spain 3-Chile 0 and Serbia 2-Norway 1 for Group A plus Greece 1-Poland 2 in D.
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