France into quarters
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ByEurosport
Published 11/02/2006 at 16:39 GMT
Germany will not soon forget this seventh Davis Cup meeting with France. After two days of fighting in Halle, they had to bow their heads after Llodra and Clement beat Tommy Haas and Alexander Waske 6-7 (6) 6-3 6-4 6-1in the doubles to give France an unsu
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"You have to acknowledge how well they played, even if that's difficult," a dissapointed Haas said afterwards."You have to expect them to go far in this year's competition."
The match started off well for the Germans as they took the first set 7-6 (6). But Waske, ranked number 108 in the world, started making a lot of errors and the French repetedly attacked his weak serve.
Forget said he had instructed Clement and Llodra to target the erratic Waske.
"I felt at one stage that Waske was a little bit inconsistent so I told the guys to really focus on him."
The Germans had their chances in the match, during the fourth game of the second set they broke the French: "One or two points here and there going the other way and maybe the outcome would have been different," Haas said.
But the French played better at the bigger points and took the second set 6-3. After that they were on a roll and had no problems taking the third and fourth set. During the last set, the Germans only got one service game in.
RUSSIA NEXT
Germany, who have returned to the elite World Group after a two-year absence, last defeated France way back in 1938 and now face a World Group qualifying rubber in September.
Germany last defeated France way back in 1938. Kuehnen said Kiefer and Rainer Schuettler would probably play in Sunday's dead reverse singles rubbers.
France now face Russia in April's quarter finals, after Russia breased through their matches against The Netherlands to also book their ticket on Saturday.
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