Tennis Davis CupPeter Clarke, the Irish number one, perished in three sets in the first match of Ireland's Europe-Africa Zone Group Two Davis Cup tie against Hungary last night.
Clarke, a tour professional, had one of those days when he wished he could have been playing a Challenger event, preferably in some outpost well away from the home town eyes at Fitzwilliam.
His 28-year-old opponent, Gergely Kisgyorgy, some 500 points below him in the world rankings, not for the first time in his Davis Cup career, raised his level for an impressively one-sided 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win.
"I always play really good in the Davis Cup," said Kisgyorgy. "They always say I should be the best player in the world if it was always Davis Cup. I am very passionate when I play for Hungary."
Clarke, who struggled with his toss, his serve, his concentration and his backhand, provided his more experienced opponent with a number of avenues to explore, to his obvious frustration.
"I can't remember serving that badly before," he said. "My ball toss was all over the place. I hit only 30 per cent or 40 per cent of first serves. In indoor tennis that doesn't help a lot. It was a bad day out there. I wasn't missing my backhands by a couple of inches; I was hitting the backboards. I didn't feel sharp with my game at all today."
Clarke was broken in the seventh game of the first set for 3-4, his second double fault handing Kisgyorgy the first break point of the match. With his erratic serving and his opponent's ability to hold control and most importantly pick up his game on the big points, the Hungarian easily closed out the set in 35 minutes.
In the second set, a well worked point gave the Hungarian a volley into an open court on advantage, before serving for 5-3 and again closing it out 6-4. Then when the Irish number one handed over his first service game of the third set, there was no way back.
With Clarke out of sorts and his opponent leaving his best tennis for the important points, the outcome then looked inevitable. Largely attacking the Irishman's less reliable backhand, especially on serve, Kisgyorgy swept his way to the third set 6-4 and the match.
"Every time I had a sniff, he hit an unbelievable serve on the line. He also mixed it up well and when I thought I had a read on it, he changed," said Clarke.
Kevin Sorensen, demonstrating an elegant backhand and admirable poise in the second singles match of the day, broke the 290th ranked Kornel Bardoczky for a 6-3 first set. By then it was obvious that the Irish number two was a confident scrapper and, ranked at 660, punching above his weight.
Breaking serve for a second time in the second set for 7-5 and chasing down everything, Sorensen dipped in the third, Bardoczky breaking in the second game for 6-4. If that didn't make the crowd queasy, Sorensen then let slip a service game in the fourth set as the Hungarian swept to a 6-5 lead. A tie-break decided that set as the match moved into a late-night fifth.
Sorensen then appeared to tire and finally fell in a one-way final set 6-3.
Singles: G Kisgyorgy bt P Clarke 6-4, 6-4, 6-4; K Bardoczky bt K Sorensen 3-6, 5-7, 6-4, 7-6, 6-3.
