The Croats won the doubles as they had done in all of the previous ties and it was an outstanding performance from Ljubicic and Ancic and showed their superior teamwork over Michal Mertinak and Dominik Hrbaty by winning 7-6 6-3 7-6.
The Slovak combination did play quite well in an entertaining match, but were let down by a combination of not converting enough of their break point chances and inspired play from the Croats. Obviously in a match of this magnitude the first set was the key to this match and if the Slovaks had won it, then anything could have happened, though the Croats were superior overall in this match and deserved their victory.
Big Goran was getting in the spirit of the atmosphere, by hitting one of his own teammates with the big rubber sticks, there were plenty of shots of Srdjan Ivanisevic, for those who don't know is Goran's father.
Now the pressure is all with Ljubo to win the 4th match and bring home the Davis Cup for Croatia. He has an excellent record over Hrbaty, but that counts for not much in this environment, he has had a tendency to fall in the big matches and this is really the biggest one for him. Everything is in favour of Croatia, even if Ljubicic loses, but in Davis Cup anything can happen.
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