Fish goes the distance to nudge US into lead over Swiss

Feb 10, 2012, 17:30 GMT

Fribourg, Switzerland - Mardy Fish began living up to his national number one standing as he defeated Stanislas Wawrinka 6-2, 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 9-7 to give the visiting US a 1-0 lead over Switzerland in their Davis Cup World Group first round tie on Friday.

The red-clad Swiss supporters who packed the Forum Fribourg were not quite enough to will Wawrinka over the line, with Fish saving two break points in the tense final game of a marathon that lasted for nearly four and a half hours.

Roger Federer, the lone member of the ATP top four who is playing a Davis tie this opening weekend, was ready to step in and face John Isner in hopes of salvaging the day's scoreline.

The 32-times champion Americans lead the series 2-1. But the once-powerful nation has lifted only one Davis trophy in the past 16 years.

The 28th-ranked Wawrinka had been hoping to play the hero's role, which he performed in September when he scored the win over Lleyton Hewitt, thus returning the Swiss to the World Group.

Wawrinka saved match points in the tenth and last games of the final set but was unable to hold off world number eight Fish as the American produced a winner on his third opportunity.

Fish finished the slug-fest on clay with 15 aces to 10 for Wawrinka and fired 93 winner to 80 for the Swiss.

In Nis, 2010 champion Serbia, missing Novak Djokovic, took a 1-0 lead over underpowered Sweden, which is missing top man Robin Soderling through illness.

Janko Tipsarevic started the tie off with a victory over Filip Prpic 6-3, 6-3, 6-4, with Viktor Troicki hoping to end the day 2-0 for the hosts as he played Michael Ryderstedt.

Last year's finalist Argentina got the early jump on Germany, with Juan Monaco thrashing Philipp Petzschner 6-3, 6-3, 6-3. The host nation was hoping to return to level-pegging as Florian Mayer took on David Nalbandian.

Japan and Croatia stood level at 1-1 after the opening day, with Go Soeda unstoppable against Ivan Dodig 6-7 (3-7), 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-5. Croatian Ivo Karlovic surprised Japan's rising star Kei Nishikori 6-4, 6-4, 6-3.

In other ties, Spain were playing Kazakhstan at Oviedo, Austria were hosting Russia at Wiener Neustadt, the Czech Republic were facing Italy at Ostrava and in Vancouver, France were to play newly promoted Canada.