Berdych and Stepanek put Czechs in Davis Cup final

Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek put defending champions Czech Republic into the Davis Cup final by beating Argentina's Carlos Berlocq and Horacio Zeballos in the doubles on Saturday.

World number five Berdych and US Open doubles champion Stepanek defeated the Argentines 6-3 6-4 6-2, giving the Czechs an unassailable 3-0 lead in their semi-final and a place in their third final in five years.

They will face either Canada or Serbia on November 15-17.

Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil subdued Nenad Zimonjic and Ilija Bozoljac 6-7(6) 6-4 3-6 7-6 (5) 10-8 in a rip-roaring doubles on Saturday to give Canada a 2-1 lead against 2010 winners Serbia in their Davis Cup semi-final.

Games went with serve in the final set until the tiring Zimonjic sliced a backhand into the net on his serve and Pospisil held in the final game of the four-hour, 20-minute contest.

Serbia's world number one Novak Djokovic takes on 11th-ranked Milos Raonic in Sunday's opening reverse singles in the first meeting between the two players before Janko Tipsarevic plays Pospisil in the tie's final rubber.

Zimonjic and Bozoljac saved three set points to nose ahead in front of 8,000 vociferous fans in Belgrade's Kombank Arena, including several hundred flag-waving Canadian supporters.

Nestor, who won one French Open and two Wimbledon titles with Zimonjic before they split in 2010, engineered a break of his former partner's serve in the second set, which put Canada on level terms.

A delicious backhand down the middle from Bozoljac broke Nestor's serve in the sixth game of the third set, allowing Serbia to regain control of the match before Pospisil redressed the balance when he sealed the fourth set tie-break with an ace.

Bozoljac saved one match point on Pospisil's serve but was powerless to stop the second as the 22-year-old wrapped up the slugfest with a stinging forehand down the line.

The Czechs' all-time best doubles pairing with a 13-1 record were playing together for the first time this season and in front of a crowd of more than 11,000 at Prague's O2 Arena, where the team lifted the trophy for the first time as an independent nation last year.

Stepanek, coming into the competition on the back of winning the men's doubles title with Leander Paes at Flushing Meadows last weekend, immediately set his sights on another Davis Cup title.

"We would like to keep that trophy because it's beautiful," he said at the courtside after the match.

"It feels great; this competition means a lot to us. It is an honour to play in front of our home crowd, our home fans."

The Czech duo, who played in every live rubber in the title run last year, teamed up for the first time this year after injuries prevented them playing the early rounds together.

With the crowd behind them, they looked more at ease with the fast pace on the hard court surface, which gave Argentina problems just as it did Spain in last year's final.

Argentina went into the tie as underdogs and played without world number seven Juan Martin Del Potro, who sat out this year's competition, and their best doubles player, David Nalbandian, who underwent shoulder surgery in May.

Captain Martin Jaite made no excuses, however. "We played against a great team...one of the best teams at the moment in the Davis Cup," he said.

GOOD YEAR

The Czech pair, following up singles wins over Juan Monaco and Leonardo Mayer on Friday, showed their experience in the first set on Saturday, fighting off a break point to go up 4-3. They then broke the Argentines before serving out the set.

The second set played out similarly before the Czechs were able to break Berlocq's serve for the second time to go up 4-3. The Argentine pair got back to 5-4 but Berdych served well and finished off the set with a smash.

Berdych, the Czechs' top player, broke Zeballos in the third set to go up 3-2 when he fired a forehand winner from the baseline that made Berlocq step out of the way.

The Czechs never looked back and Berdych sent the team through to the final on his first match ball.

"We played a great game," Berdych said. "Everything was in the right place today. We didn't drop a serve. We were taking our chances."

The Czech Republic also defeated Argentina in Buenos Aires in last year's semi-finals on their way to lifting the Cup for the first time since Czechoslovakia won it in 1980.

"It was a tough day. We didn't have too many chances," Zeballos, who had won his previous two Davis Cup doubles matches paired with Nalbandian, said.

"But for sure tomorrow when I wake up I will say, okay, we lost in the semi-finals. So it is a very good year for our country."

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