The Ukraine national tennis team defeated the Colombian team on home soil in the Davis Cup World Group match played in Kaspi, Georgia. And for the first time in seven years, the Ukrainian team qualified for the final part of the tournament.

In this match, the Ukrainian team included Alexey Krutykh, Vitaly Orlov, Ilya Beloborodko and Vyacheslav Belinsky (Alexander Ovcharenko was on the bench). The Colombian team was considered his favorite; This team includes a tennis player in the top 100 in the ATP world rankings and one of the best couples of the last decade. The choice of ground was not in the Colombians’ favor; South American tennis players have traditionally been strong on clay, but the Colombians had to play hard against Ukraine.

The Ukrainian national team played without their leader; Denis Molchanov and Vitaly Sachko played against the opposition in Szczecin, Poland this week. Ilya Marchenko, who played in the Challenger in the USA, would also be in the team. However, the absence of these tennis players did not affect the team’s performance in any way.

Alexey Krutykh

Alexey Krutykh became the leader of the Ukrainian national team and won both of its matches. The first of these was the opener against Nicolas Mejia. And this victory was perhaps the most important for Ukrainian tennis players, giving them confidence that they could play the Colombian team and beat it. And already in the next match, Vladislav Orlov managed to give a fight to the leader of the Colombians, Daniel Elai Galan.

And on the second day Krutykh defeated Galan. Moreover, he did this by losing the first set and did not lose a single game in the second game, equalizing the score in the match after losing in doubles. And perhaps this inspired Vladislav Orlov to the eventual victory in the fifth match.

Vladislav Orlov

The real value of Vladislav Orlov is that he was able to impose the fight against Daniel Elai Galan on the first day, showing his colleagues in the national team that even he, the leader of the Colombians in singles, is not invincible. it ranks much higher in the rankings and is in the world top 100. And in the third set, “steering wheel” – happens…

Orlov’s second match against Nicolas Mejia became not only the result, but also the real decoration of the entire meeting. A very high-quality game played by both tennis players, an equal fight, resulted in a tense tiebreak in the third set and the victory of the Ukrainian team.

Ilya Beloborodko and Vyacheslav Belinsky

Both tennis players are still very young and they had to play against the main “ace” of the Colombians – Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, one of the strongest couples of the last decade. We were not afraid, we were able to fight especially in the second set, it was already good.

It is not known whether Beloborodko and Belinsky will still play in pairs (and in the next match, Ukraine’s first racket in doubles Denis Molchanov can already play for the national team), but in principle their pair has a future. . It’s a distant future, but still…

What’s next?

And then they qualified for the final stage, where the Ukrainian team qualified for the first time in seven years. Here the Ukrainians will play against one of the participants in the final part of the Davis Cup 2023, the group stage of which will be held these days in Split in Croatia, Valencia in Spain, Bologna in Italy and Manchester in Britain.

Of course, the strongest teams and the strongest tennis players in the world play there, but this is the main value of the match against the Colombian team, which played in the final not so long ago – this match showed that there is no need for this. making negative predictions and predicting defeat for our team. The Ukrainian national team is capable of surprises; unpleasant for competitors but pleasant for us.