Brazil Heats Up Against U.S.

Brazilian tennis fans traded in their samba drums for loud plastic trumpets, which they used to punctuate every American mistake--of which there were many--in their Davis Cup match Saturday.

Playing in temperatures that reached 100 degrees, the Brazilian doubles team of Gustavo Kuerten and Jaime Oncins beat Richey Reneberg and Alex O’Brien, 6-2, 6-4, 7-5, in a 2-hour 14-minute clay-court match.

The victory allowed Brazil to stave off elimination in the best-of-five World Group series.

The Americans lead, 2-1, with two more singles matches today. Kuerten will face Jim Courier and Brazil’s Fernando Meligeni will play MaliVai Washington.

Neither of the Americans doubles players were able to hold serve, a failing the Brazilians exploited.

After shutting out the Brazilians in the first game with O’Brien serving, the U.S. team was unable to keep up the pace, with the Brazilians breaking Reneberg’s serve in the third game and again in the seventh.

That pattern held up for the rest of the match.

“I didn’t play well on my serve,” Reneberg said. “I also missed a lot of volleys. It was just a bad day. But I also have to give them a lot of credit. They didn’t make many errors.”

At Bucharest, Romania, the doubles team of Paul Haarhuis and Jacco Eltingh, ranked No. 3 in the world, defeated Ion Moldovan and Razvan Sabau, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4, 6-3, giving the Netherlands its first series victory over Romania.

Romania leads the series, 2-1.

The Brazil-U.S. winner plays Romania or the Netherlands.

On the grass courts at White City in Sydney, Arnaud Boetsch recovered to defeat Patrick Rafter, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5), today to prevent Australia from completing a sweep of defending champion France in a World Group first-round match.

France became only the fourth defending champion to go out in the first round in the last 25 years.

At Rome, Diego Nargiso and Stefano Pescosolido beat Leonardo Lavalle and Alejandro Hernandez, 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (9-7), 6-3, giving Italy a 3-0 lead over Mexico.

Germany stayed alive when the doubles team of Marc Goellner and David Prinosil beat Spaniards Carlos Costa and Alex Corretja, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3, at Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Spain leads the series, 2-1.

At Durban, South Africa, Wayne Ferreira gave South Africa a 2-0 lead over Russia by completing a rain-delayed 7-5, 6-3, 3-6, 4-6, 8-6 victory over Andrei Cherkasov.

At Lulea, Sweden, Nicklas Kulti teamed with Mikael Tillstrom to beat Marc Rosset and Lorenzo Manta, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4, giving Sweden a 2-1 edge over Switzerland.