VOA常速英语2007年-US Wraps Up Davis Cup Win Over Russia

By Steve Schy
Portland, Oregon
03 December 2007

The United States has completed its quest¹ for a 32nd Davis Cup Tennis title with a 4-1 victory over Russia in Portland, Oregon. As VOA's Steve Schy reports, after clinching² the title 3-0 on Saturday, all that was left to do was play out the string with a pair of best-of-three-set "dead rubber" reverse³-singles matches on Sunday.

It was an anti-climactic ending to the event after the excitement of Saturday's victory. Top-ranked American Andy Roddick chose to forego the reverse singles, and was replaced by doubles specialist Bob Bryan for Sunday's match against Igor Andreev, while James Blake faced Russia's Dmitry Tursunov.

Andreev beat Bryan 6-3, 7-6. Bryan said he does not enjoy playind dead rubber matches and thinks they could be put to better use.

 "I think the ITF should allow a guy like (U.S. practice player) Donald Young to get some experience," he said. " I think there's a lot of opportunity to give some guys some good experience in a big crowd like that."

James Blake closed out the best-of-five series by fighting back for a 1-6, 6-3, 7-5 win over Dmitry Tursunov. The United States now holds a 3-1 all-time advantage over Russia in Davis Cup play.

Andy Roddick and James Blake won Friday's opening singles matches to give the United States a 2-0, lead, while the Bryan bothers sealed the win with a straight sets victory Saturday in doubles.

1 quest   

n.寻求，搜索，追求

参考例句：

• Man will suffer many disappointments in his quest for truth.人类在探索真理过程中必然会遭受挫折。
• His quest for perfection is relentless.他不断追求完美。

2 clinching   

v.（尤指两人）互相紧紧抱[扭]住( clinch的现在分词 )；解决（争端、交易），达成（协议）

参考例句：

• Joe gets clinching evidence of the brains role when he dreams. 乔做梦时得到了大脑发生作用的决定性依据。 来自辞典例句
• Clinching, wrestling, pushing, or seizing, without attempting a throw or other technique. 抱，扭摔，推或抓而没有摔或其它的技术。 来自互联网

3 reverse   

v.推翻，颠倒，反向；n.反面，逆境；adj.反向的

参考例句：

• His answer was just the reverse of what I expected.他的回答正好与我期望的相反。
• Please reverse the positions of two pictures.请把两张图片的位置倒转过来。