TENNIS in DEPTH.

Serbia has reached the Davis Cup by BNP Paribas final for the first time, and will be at home to France following Janko Tipsarevic’s straight-sets win over Radek Stepanek.

The Serbs’ No. 2 player defeated Stepanek 60 76(6) 64 in the decisive fifth rubber of the Serbia-Czech Republic semifinal in Belgrade. The tie went to the wire following Novak Djokovic’s four-set victory earlier in the day against Tomas Berdych.

Tipsarevic rode the wave of Djokovic’s win in an emphatic first set, in which he stroked the ball beautifully while Stepanek took seven games to get going. But the second set went with serve until the tiebreak, when Stepanek had the better chances.

He got the early minibreak, and while Tipsarevic clawed his way back, Stepanek always looked the stronger. But the shootout was characterised by increasingly nervous rallies, with neither player trusting himself to hit through his groundstrokes. A tentative 26-stroke rally saw Stepanek to set point at 6-5, and a slightly mis-hit forehand that caught the line opened up the court for the Czech to win the set on a follow-up forehand. But he overhit it by the smallest of margins, and the tiebreak was level at 6-6.

An unreturnable serve from Tipsarevic gave Serbia set point at 7-6, and Tipsarevic gambled by charging the second serve to hit a clean backhand winner down the line to claim the breaker 8-6.

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