S.-PETERSBURG, January 6, Sergey Yaremenko. Olympic champion Evgeny Kafelnikov said that the Russian national team, which reached the semifinals of the Association of Tennis Professionals Cup (ATP Cup) in Sydney, has a clear leader who pulls the matches, and his partners are doing their best to win. Duo Daniil Medvedev/Roman Safiullin on Thursday in the decisive double meeting of the third round of the group round of the ATP Cup beat Italians Matteo Berrettini/Yannick Sinner with a score of 5: 7, 6: 4, 10: 5. Earlier, Safiullin lost to Sinner — 6: 7 (6: 8), 3: 6, and Medvedev won over Berrettini — 6: 2, 6: 7 (5: 7), 6: 4. The Russian national team, which won all three match meetings, took first place in the group. The rival of the Russians in the semifinals will become known later. «The performance of the Russian national team is not surprising. There is a team leader (Daniil Medvedev) who pulls matches on himself. And there are partners who squeeze the maximum out of themselves and do everything possible to achieve a result,» said Kafelnikov «Safiullin has not just appeared, he has been playing for a long time. It's just that the guy did not have the best combination of circumstances with injuries and other things. But he was always a rather talented tennis player. Now everything is normalized, so he plays well,» said Kafelnikov.
