Karim MaamounSTAY FIT – STAY HEALTHY!

Davis Cup Egypt vs CyprusFiled Under: Tennis

I’ve just arrived from our first Davis Cup tie this year, it was against Cyprus or I can say Markus Baghdatis. Our team lost 3-2, Markus is the one man team who won his 2 singles matches pretty easy and the doubles match partnering Kallias. We played indoors on a decoturf hard court surface, it wasn’t so fast but very low bounce which was perfect for Markus, going there we knew that our chance to win this tie is by winning the doubles match, it was really tough to beat Markus indoors on his favorite surface and especially that he is in his top form now with a rank of 37 in the world. So we lost our doubles in three sets 76 75 61, we had 3 set points in the first and a break in the second but Markus was really not missing and his partner just gained confidence from being beside him so he started playing better in the end, we had chances to win the first 2 sets but it didn’t work out. I won the first singles match against a non ranked player who was number 3 in their team in three straight sets, Markus won the second singles easy against Sabry our number 2 in the Egyptian team, Me and Sabry lost the doubles in three sets, Markus then finished off the tie with an easy win against our number 4 player in three straight sets to extend the lead to 3-1 lead, Sabry won the last match easy to give us our second win. Same thing happened to us in 2006 when Markus was number 8. They throw us an easy match in the beginning then Markus wins his 2 singles and the doubles then throw us another easy match in the end, this is how they play in all the ties, if Cyprus wins the doubles match then the tie is over because Markus will most probably win his singles matches.

Next match will be against Denmark in Cairo at last J so it will be on clay in hot weather which will be an advantage for us, again we are playing a play off match to remain in the second Euro/African group for the third year in a row.