Belgium, France and Argentina advance to Davis Cup finals

Zizou Bergs grabbed a point on Sunday as Belgium beat Croatia to book their place in the Davis Cup final, while France also advanced with a straight-sets win over Taiwan.

After Saturday’s opening singles match was known, Sander Gil and Joran Vliegen won a surprise doubles match over Ivan Dodig and Mate Pavic 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) , leading the Belgian national team.

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Bergs got the job done for the visiting team in Varazdin, defeating Duje Aydukovic 6-1, 7-5 and confirming his success on the opening day against former world No. 3 Marin Cilic.

Croatia will miss out on a place in the finals for the first time since the Davis Cup format changed in 2019.

This year’s group stage will be held in September, with the final tournament to be held in Malaga in November.

France, who had already led 2-0 in singles on Saturday, came back from a set down with Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin to defeat Xu Yuxiu and Jason John 3-6, 6-2, 7- They defeated them 6(7) and secured their breakthrough. /1).

“I was probably a little timid at first,” Roger-Vasselin said.

“We stayed calm. We knew our level of play was going to change. We had to stay nervous.”

Quentin Harris rounded out France’s victory with a 6-3, 7-6 (7/3) win over Jason Tseng.

The Czech Republic also qualified with a 3-0 win over Israel on Sunday.

The Israeli doubles pair of Daniel Cukierman and Edan Leshem had to withdraw from their match against Tomas Machak and Adam Pavlasek.

Cukierman came off the bench in the third game with a hamstring injury, and although he tried to continue, he had to give up after a few games.

“We played really well from the beginning. I wish Dani a speedy recovery. It’s not good for things to end like this,” Macak said.

Argentina held out against a weaker Kazakhstan and won a dramatic 3-2 victory.

In the doubles, host country Argentina took a 2-1 lead with a three-set victory, but Kazakhstan began an unexpected comeback against the backdrop of a large gap in the rankings between their players and the South American countries.

Kazakhstan’s No. 1 Alexander Bublik won the ATP event held in Montpellier, while world No. 278 Timofey Skatov defeated No. 22 Francisco Cerundro 7-6 (7/1), 6-4. .

World No. 338 Dmitry Popko then fought back from a set down to scare Sebastian Baez in the deciding rubber, but missed two match points in the third set tie-break, 6-4, 3-6. 7 and fell into a difficult situation. -6 (8/6) loss.

Slovakia, the Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Brazil, the United States and Canada also qualified over the weekend.

Serbia, without Novak Djokovic, lost 4-0 to Slovakia.

In addition to defending champions Italy and last year’s runners-up Australia, Great Britain and Spain have also automatically qualified for the finals.