The choice of experience will not have paid off. Richard Gasquet (86th worldwide) preferred to Hugo Gaston (66th) was beaten by Czech Tomas Machac 7-6 (7/3), 6-2, this Thursday afternoon during the first match of the France team in Davis Cup Group C.
The second single of this meeting opposes in the wake, at this very moment – Adrian Mannarino (71st) to Jiri Vesely (82nd), before the double between the pairs Nicolas Mahut – Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Zdenek Kolar – Jiri Lehecka.
Great Britain, the third team in Group C, will compete against France on Saturday.
At 35, Gasquet seemed to physically collapse against a 21-year-old opponent, 143rd in the world and who played his luck thoroughly. “I can’t take it anymore,” he told his captain Sébastien Grosjean during a change of side in the middle of the second round.
The Frenchman made the first break in the first set before giving up his next face-off. The two players arrived at the tie-break, dominated by the Czech thanks to five unforced errors from Gasquet. The match then completely shifted in favor of Machac, well helped by the mountain of unforced errors committed by Gasquet.
After 1h33 (including 56 minutes for the first round), France was led 1-0 by the Czech Republic.
