An inspired Dutch team made Davis Cup history by putting their country in the final for the first time, defeating Germany 2-0 on Friday (22).
The singles victories sparked a celebration among an army of orange-clad Dutch fans inside the Jose Maria Martin Carpena arena.
Paul Haarhuis’ team will face defending champions Italy or Australia in the final on Sunday (24). They face each other in the second semi-final on Saturday (23).
Van de Zandschulp, the player who ended the legendary Spaniard’s career on Tuesday, kept his cool and defeated Daniel Altmaier 6-4, 6-7(12), 6-3, although he needed 10 match points to give advantage to your team in the semi-final.
The world number 80 has won all three of his matches this week, including defeating Carlos Alcaraz and Marcel Granollers in the deciding doubles against Spain on Tuesday.
German Jan-Lennard Struff looked set to keep the three-time champions in with a chance of reaching the final for the first time since 1993 as he led by a set and a break of serve against Griekspoor.
However, Griekspoor, ranked 40th, produced an impressive fightback and won 6-7(4), 7-5, 6-4, crowning the decisive victory with his 25th ace.
“It’s unbelievable, we’ve been talking about this for two or three years,” Griekspoor, 28, said courtside.
“We come here all the time and have had incredibly difficult draws, losing to finalists and winners, and this year we had Spain in the quarter-finals, but we really believed in ourselves and felt it was possible.”
Van de Zandschulp, 29, looked on course for a comfortable victory after winning the opening set and leading in the second. But he was dragged into a marathon 26-point tiebreak in which he saw five match points beg before Altmaier stole them to take the match to a deciding set.
Van de Zandschulp went ahead in the decisive game but allowed Altmaier to come back, but then broke serve again and led 5-3, with both players struggling to maintain a high level.
Overcome by nervousness, he committed three double faults when trying to end the match, one of them on a match point, but he ended up succeeding.
The second singles game was a match of much higher quality, with both players producing an impressive performance on the fast indoor court.
Struff barely made a mistake in winning the first set, but regrets not taking advantage of either of the two break points he had when Griekspoor served at 3-4 in the second set.
From that moment on, Griekspoor, serving like a man possessed, reacted to outplay his opponent and remained calm amid the deafening noise to hold serve and secure victory.
Captain Haarhuis, who played for the Dutch Davis Cup team from 1990 to 2005, paid tribute to his players.
“For me it means I am a Davis Cup finalist for the first time and I am part of this team that has played so well over the last five years,” he said.
“Especially unique because we don’t have the top five players, the top ten, but it’s a team effort and we’ve shown we can get here. The guys are very confident after that, but we will have to go out on the field with big balls on Sunday and believe that it is our time.”
