Sam Querrey beat Thiago Alves 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (3) on Sunday to give the United States a dramatic 3-2 victory over Brazil and a spot in the Davis Cup quarterfinals.
The U.S. will host Serbia in the next round in Boise, Idaho, from April 5-7.Querrey, 25, stepped up after teammate John Isner lost 2-6, 6-4, 6-7 (7), 6-4, 6-3 to Thomaz Bellucci earlier Sunday, forcing a deciding fifth match. It was the first time since 2000 that a U.S. team needed to win the fifth match to advance.The 25-year-old Querrey started fast, breaking Alves in the second game of the match. But Alves, ranked No. 141, responded with breaks of his own in the third and ninth games to take the opening set.Querrey responded with a consistent array of cross-court winners to control play the rest of the way.U.S. team captain Jim Courier had special praise for the 20th-ranked Querrey. "Sam faced some adversity at the end and played a great tiebreaker to get past not closing it out on serve," Courier said. "Today is a good day for Sam and our team in a lot of ways."BrieflyStephens injury: Sloane Stephens is pulling out of the U.S. Fed Cup team's upcoming first-round matches against Italy because of a strained abdominal muscle. Melanie Oudin replaces Stephens on the U.S. roster for the Feb. 9-10 matches on indoor red clay at Rimini, Italy.Paris: Unseeded Mona Barthel of Germany won her second career title Sunday, upsetting top-seeded Sara Errani of Italy 7-5, 7-6 (4) in the Open GDF Suez final in Paris.Thailand: Second-seeded Maria Kirilenko of Russia rallied to win the Pattaya Open 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 over beat fifth-seeded Sabine Lisicki.Davis Cup roundupHost Canada upset a short-handed Spain team to reach the quarterfinals for the first time. No. 15-ranked Milos Raonic defeated No. 82 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 in the opening reverse singles match to give Canada an insurmountable 3-1 lead. Spain was missing Rafael Nadal, David Ferrer and Nicolas Almagro.Fabio Fognini beat Ivan Dodig in four sets in the decisive singles match to give host Italy a 3-2 win over Croatia and send his country to the quarterfinals (against Canada) for the first time in 15 years.Argentina completed a 5-0 sweep of Germany in their first-round series in Buenos Aires. Argentina will face France, a 5-0 winner over Israel.Tomas Berdych beat Stanislas Wawrinka 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (5) to lift the Czech Republic to a 3-1 win over host Switzerland. The defending champion Czechs will face Kazakhstan, which upset Austria.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
