Argentina and Serbia wrapped up quarterfinal victories on the road in the Davis Cup Sunday to join France and the Czech Republic in the tournament's last four. David Nalbandian beat Mikhail Youzhny 7-6 (5), 6-4, 6-3 in the deciding match in Moscow to clinch Argentina a 3-2 win over Russia, which lost at home for the first time since 1996. In Split, the second-ranked Novak Djokovic defeated Marin Cilic 6-3, 6-3, 6-2 in front of a fiery Croatian crowd to give Serbia an unassailable 3-1 lead over its neighbor. Janko Tipsarevic then beat Antonio Veic 6-2, 7-6 (5) to rubber-stamp victory and seal Serbia's progression into its first Davis Cup semifinal, where it will host the Czech Republic in September. The other semifinal will see Argentina travel to France, which secured a 5-0 whitewash over defending champion Spain. Serbia had taken a 2-1 lead thanks to its doubles victory on Saturday and Djokovic had ethnic insults hurled at him in his match, which lasted 2 hours, 24 minutes before he finished Cilic off with a drop-shot winner. Argentina's win ended Russia's 17-tie winning streak at home since losing to the US in the 1995 final. Pete Sampras won all three of his matches on that occasion. In the absence of the injured Juan Martin Del Potro, Nalbandian was Argentina's inspiration. Nalbandian missed much of last season because of injury and has been sidelined with a hamstring problem since April, forcing him to drop out of the top 100. But the 28-year-old right-hander showed no signs of rustiness as he swept aside No. 6-ranked Nikolay Davydenko in straight sets in Friday's opening match and did the same to Youzhny two days later. Earlier, Davydenko had beaten Eduardo Schwank 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, 6-4 to keep Russia's hopes alive but the host - missing big-serving players Igor Andreev and Dmitry Tursunov - came up short. Argentina has reached the final three times but is yet to win a title. France held an insurmountable 3-0 lead over Spain coming into the reverse singles, and it clinched the clean sweep thanks to Gilles Simon's 7-6 (4), 7-6 (7) victory over Nicolas Almagro and Julien Benneteau's 7-6 (3), 6-4 defeat of Feliciano Lopez. The French, who have won the Davis Cup nine times, dealt Spain its first 5-0 Davis Cup loss since 1957, when the team was thrashed by South Africa. Chile won one of the reverse singles matches to save some face in a 4-1 loss to the Czech Republic. The Czechs had secured victory on Saturday, surging to a 3-0 lead. Jorge Aguilar defeated Lukas Dlouhy 6-1, 7-6 (6) on Sunday for Chile's only victory. Also Sunday, Ivo Minar of the Czech Republic defeated Cristobal Saavedra-Corvalan 7-6 (2), 6-2.
