Serbia Reaches Davis Cup Quarterfinals as Czechs Beat Swiss

Serbia was among three teams to qualify for the Davis Cup quarterfinals as defending champion Czech Republic beat Switzerland in the longest match in the competition’s history.

Serbia, France and Argentina won doubles matches today to take unbeatable 3-0 leads in the best-of-five first round of the top team event in men’s tennis.

The Czech Republic and Italy took 2-1 leads, while Austria avoided elimination in its matchup with Kazakhstan. Two singles matches will be played tomorrow to decide the outcomes.

Serbia’s Viktor Troicki and Nenad Zimonjic defeated Ruben Bemelmans and Steve Darcis of Belgium 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 4-6, while David Nalbandian and Horacio Zeballos of Argentina beat Tobias Kamke and Christopher Kas of Germany 6-1, 6-4, 5-7, 6-2.

France qualified for the final eight as Michael Llodra and Julien Benneteau beat Israel’s Dudi Sela and Jonathan Erlich 7-6 (7-3), 6-1, 6-0.

In Geneva, Tomas Berdych and Lukas Rosol beat Stanislas Wawrinka and Marco Chiudinelli 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-7 (3-7), 24-22 in seven hours and two minutes. The fifth set took over 3 1/2 hours, with the Swiss fighting off 12 match points before the Czechs scored the only service break in the final game.

Austria pulled to within 2-1 of Kazakhstan as Alexander Peya and Julian Knowle won in straight sets over Andrey Golubev and Yuriy Schukin.

The U.S. leads Brazil and Canada leads Spain, both by 2-1 scores, heading into their doubles matches later today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Bensch in London at bbensch@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Elser at celser@bloomberg.net.