Christian Garin (17th) fell 6-0, 6-1 to Norbert Gombos (115th), which meant a tough defeat for Chile in the Davis Cup series against Slovakia.
The performance in doubles was not the optimo either. The duo of Alejandro Tabilo (276th) and Tomás Barrios (261st) fell 1-6 and 6-7 (4) to the pair of Lukas Klein (269th) and Filip Polasek (10th).
Garin had taken to the court with the responsibility of winning and equalizing the series. However, he received one of the biggest beatings of his career, leaving the series with an irretrievable 3-1 in favor of the Europeans.
The captain of the Chilean team, Nicolás Massú, regretted the defeat, but assured that he remains confident that his pupils will do great things.
Massú told a press conference that “people know me, they know how I think. I am absolutely not moved by a victory. It happened to me at the Olympics, I was still the same person. Nor the defeats.”
“You have to continue anyway. I have every expectation that this group is going to be important things in the next 10 years. This defeat doesn’t change anything for me. I’m sure we’ll get back to the World Group,” he added.
“In Nicolas Jarry’s match (against Gombos) if he broke in the third set, that point could have fallen on our side. In the doubles we were able to win the second set. He was confident that Cristian could win, but Gombos was inspired. There are times when things can be solved and sometimes the rival does not allow it. I lived it as a player.”
“Yesterday Cristian was very happy, he played very well. We were all happy at this very table, but sport is like that. It happened and it will continue to happen. It hurts to lose, but you have to keep going,” the tennis player added.
Finally, he said that “we have a rematch in February, we will see who we have to play with and we will go with everything.”
Now the cast captained by Nicolás Massú must play the play-offs of this category, trying not to be relegated to the World Zone II. The date of the repechage to not lose the category again will be next February and their possible rivals are the 12 winners of World Group II.
Among these nations are already secured Mexico (which beat Bulgaria), Tunisia (to the Dominican Republic), Switzerland (to Estonia), Denmark (to Thailand), Poland (to El Salvador), Slovenia (3-1 to Paraguay), Zimbabwe (China did not show up) and Chinese Taipei (Morocco did not attend)
The winners of the confrontation between Greece and Lithuania (0-2 partial), Turkey and Latvia (2-0 partial), South Africa and Venezuela (1-0) and Barbados and Indonesia (2-1 partial) will be added.
