Finland overthrew the reigning tennis Davis Cup champion Canada with a 2-1 win on Tuesday. Harri Heliövaara revealed that he had never played doubles with Otto Virtanen.
Riku Porvari,
Janne Karinkanta
shows all the matches in Finland and the final match of the tennis Davis Cup final tournament from Malaga. On Friday, Finland will face the Czech Republic and Australia in the semi-final for the winner of the pair.
On Tuesday, the Finnish national tennis team advanced to the semi-finals of the Davis Cup in Malaga, Spain. Finland beat Canada 2–1 in the quarterfinals.
Patrick from Kaukova was able to start the job in Finland. He challenged Canada nicely Milos Raonic, but had to bow out in two sets. Then he stepped onto the field Otto Virtanenwho won both singles and doubles.
– This does not improve the tennis player’s feelings much. We play historic matches one after the other. Otto Virtanen will take two matches and I also played a good game of chess, he described Harri Heliövaarawho played in doubles with Virtanen.
At the start of the semi-finals, Heliövaara was named as a pair Patrik Niklas-Salminen. Virtanen said that he only had a short conversation with the captain of the Finnish team about the possibility of a doubles match Jarkko Nieminen with.
– Jarkko asked after the singles game if I would take care of the job. I said yes – and here we are, Virtanen stated with a grin on his face.
Nieminen said that all the players of the Finnish team were prepared to play in doubles.
– In the morning we decided to go with Flow and see who performs strongly in the singles game. Patrik was ready to play. But Otto performed so strongly in the singles game that I immediately asked if he wanted to go with Harri to decide, Nieminen said.
22-year-old Virtanen said that he found the energy for two more than one and a half hour long matches from the audience. There were an estimated 5,000–6,000 Finnish supporters at the Malaga tennis stadium.
– Yes, I think it’s these Finland fans and this feeling in a bigger arena. In addition, there is a good team on the bench to support and our team spirit is so good. It’s like we’re all on the field when I play.
“We have never practiced doubles together”
Virtanen reached his best ranking in the world rankings this season, when he was 109th in April. Since then, he has not been at his best on the ATP tours, and Virtanen’s ranking is 171st in the latest list.
In February, Finland met Argentina in the Davis Cup, and Emil Ruusuvuori played among Finland’s 16 best countries. On the same weekend, Virtanen challenged Argentina nicely Francisco Cerundolo (in the most recent list ATP-21), but had to bow out.
Since then, Virtanen has beaten higher opponents in the Davis Cup: Holland Botic van de Zandschulp (ATP-51), Croatia Dino Prizmic (ATP-162), US Mackenzie McDonald (ATP-41) and Canada Gabriel Diallo (ATP-139).
In Tuesday’s quarterfinals, Virtanen won the matches with an insane passing game. In the singles game Virtanen hit up to 14 aces and in the doubles game he rattled off, among other things, three consecutive passes. The doubles was Virtanen’s fifth consecutive victory in the Davis Cup.
Harri Heliövaara praised Virtanen’s performance for good reason.
– I can reveal a secret: We have never practiced a single point of doubles together. I said to Oto at breakfast, are you ready to take two points for Finland and the man jumped into those boots quite well. You don’t need to train any more when the other just passes aces and returns like that, Heliövaara admired.
Finland will play its semi-final match on Friday. In that game, the team will face the winner of the pair Czech Republic–Australia. Heliövaara stated on Tuesday that he has not been familiar with who will meet in the chart.
– A young, hungry Czech Republic and an experienced bad Australia. It certainly doesn’t get any easier than on Tuesday. I don’t really remember because we played a bad Davis Cup. Let’s continue in the same way and let it burn, Heliövaara estimates.
shows all the matches in Finland and the final match of the tennis Davis Cup final tournament from Malaga.