Nicholas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert qualify the French team for the quarterfinals, dominating in 1h46 the pair Uchiyama-Sugita (6-3, 6-4, 6-4). Respectively ranked 228th and 445th worldwide of the specialty, the Japanese did not in any way represent a threat. But the tension soon caught up with Herbert.
Unstable on his service, he had two break points in the first set. "P2H" was then the only "Frenchy" to give up his service, while he served for the game at 6-3, 6-4, 5-2. Even Mahut knew an empty passage in the middle of the second act, having to erase four balls of the break to 1-2.
Clearly, the world numbers have not regained the fullness of their means.
The Mahut-Herbert victory:
The only area in which they clearly took the lead was opportunism. If the Japanese seized only one chance of a break in 9, Mahut and Herbert took four out of five. Hence a dry score but a severe effort for the Japanese. Qualified for the quarter-finals, the French team will return to Canada or Great Britain at the beginning of April, as they tied 1 everywhere after the first two singles.
Yannick Noah: 'We're doing well'
Yannick Noah, the captain of the French team, was relieved by the victory of the double and thus the qualification in the quarterfinals. But he recognized that his players must raise their level of play.
Nicolas Mahut:
"It was not our best game, but the main thing is to have won in three sets. There is satisfaction, but no euphoria. There was a bit of tension, it's normal, as in any Davis Cup game. These are never easy matches. We knew that at 2-0 for us, we had to finish. We are happy to have brought this point and now to join our families after forty days away from home," Nicolas Mahut said.
Pierre-Hugues Herbert: "There is no explosion of joy, rather relief because we were favorites. The job was done. We had to win and in three sets if possible. It is done but this kind of obligation necessarily generates a bit of tension. It's been a while since we left home, I left home on December 19th. . . We're happy to go back."
