KZBlog

Kazakhstan beat Switzerland 5-0 in the Davis Cup World Group playoffs this weekend, dropping only 2 sets in 5 matches. Andre Golubev was the star of the playoff, beating Marco Chiudinelli in 3 straight sets on Friday. Then he lead the doubles team with Yuri Schukin on Saturday to another straight sets victory over Yves Allegro and Stanislas Wawrinka, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. Then today he slaughtered Michael Lammer 6-3, 6-2.

Mikhail Kukushkin also put in a world class performance, first against Wawrinka (#20 in the world), which took him 5 sets to win, including losing the fourth set 1-6. Today Kukushkin made short work of Chiudinelli 6-2, 6-4 dominating the entire match, except for a brief period in the second set when it looked like the Swiss player might stage a comeback. But it was a short-lived recovery and Kukushkin shut him down quickly.

Pictures to come later as well as anecdotal stories about the exuberant and amiable Swiss fans.