There was no media blitz for Canada’s new Davis Cup hero, Bruno Agostinelli of Niagara Falls Ont., after he won the crucial fifth match of his team’s American Zone Group I playoff in Lima, Peru on Monday, July 13.
In a match resumed after it had been postponed by darkness following the third set on Sunday, Agostinelli defeated Peru’s No. 2 player, Ivan Miranda, 7-6(5), 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 to seal a 3-2 win for Canada. The victory meant Canada avoided having to travel to Uruguay a week after the US Open in September in a final attempt to defend its spot in American Zone Group I. That position is now secure for 2010.
The man who gave Canada the decisive fifth-match victory, after Peter Polansky of Thornhill, Ont., had defeated Miranda in the opening singles and Daniel Nestor of Toronto and Frederic Niemeyer of Sherbrooke, Que., had won the doubles on Saturday, is still virtually unknown in his homeland. Talking about reaction in Canada to his win, Agostinelli, a senior on the University of Kentucky tennis team, said, “I’ve been getting a lot of media attention here in Lexington – newspapers and some TV shows. But I was only in Canada for half a day (on his return from Peru) so not really anything in Canada.”
Ranked No. 1776 on the ATP computer at the time of his big win, Agostinelli had been scouted by Davis Cup captain Martin Laurendeau when he played the Southeast Conference Championships in Auburn, Alabama, in April.
“They told me I was going to be the fifth guy, I was going to be the hitting partner,” Agostinelli said about his original status for the best-of-five match tie against Peru. “Once I got back to Canada (on his way to Peru), they told me Frank (Dancevic) wasn’t coming and that I was the fourth guy and I was probably going to be playing.
“I was nervous but it was such an honour to be part of the Davis Cup team, and I was just excited to be out there.”
Agostinelli, 22, lost his opening singles on Friday to Luis Horna, a 28-year-old veteran who ranked as high as No. 33 in 2004 and gained renown by upsetting Roger Federer at the 2003 French Open. The score against Horna was a very respectable 6-2, 7-6(2), 4-6, 7-5.
“I took me a while to settle down but once I did I felt pretty good and managed to calm my nerves,” Agostinelli said.
When Polansky became sick with a high fever and couldn’t play the fourth match, Niemeyer put up a solid performance but lost 7-6(4), 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 to Horna.
That made it 2-2 and put all the pressure on Agostinelli on the red clay courts at the Club Lawn Tennis De La Exposicion in Lima. “I’ve been playing on hard courts the last four years of college and I hadn’t played on clay since I was a junior,” he said when asked about his preferred surface. “I guess hard courts but I enjoy playing on the clay.”
After the postponement on Sunday, play resumed on Monday with a completely different atmosphere. “The first two days there weren’t too many people,” Agostinelli said, “but on the last day, the Monday, they let everybody in for free. So it was a packed stadium (capacity 2,600) and the atmosphere was just unbelievable to play in.”
Fortunately for him, he did not let the overnight delay bother him. “I felt good,” he said. “I didn’t think too much about the match and I slept well.”
He and Laurendeau had a clear-cut approach to the match-up with Miranda, a 29 year old ranked No. 547. “When it got suspended and I was up two sets to one, all I could do was focus on being calm and making sure I carried out the game plan,” Agostinelli said.
That game plan was “being aggressive, taking it to him and making sure I didn’t get into those long clay-court rallies.”
It worked and he was even spared a fifth set by winning the one set played on Monday by a 6-4 score.
Agostinelli, who is out of college eligibility but will return to university in the fall to complete his final semester toward a degree in kinesiology, is playing in a $50,000 (U.S.) Challenger event on his home courts at the University of Kentucky starting on Monday the 20th.
After that, he hopes to get a wild card into either the qualifying or the main draw of the Rogers Cup in Montreal from August 10-16.
Looking to the future, the 5-foot-10 Agostinelli said, “I’m hoping to stay involved in tennis long term, either playing or eventually maybe coaching. But I think I’m going to end up staying in the tennis field for sure.”
