Argentina came back from the brink to snatch a thrilling 2-1 victory over the Czech Republic in Saturday's final and capture the World Team Cup for the third time.
Tomas Berdych gave the Czechs the first point with a 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 win over Juan Ignacio Chela before Agustin Calleri took the tie into the deciding doubles by beating Jan Hajek 6-3, 6-1.
Czech pair Berdych and Martin Damm were cruising towards victory on the red clay at the Rochusclub as they led by a set and 4-2 only for Calleri and Jose Acasuso to launch a great fightback.
They reeled off the next four games to set up a match tiebreak and won it convincingly to seal a 2-6, 6-4, 10-4 victory, with an emphatic Acasuso volley on the first matchpoint.
"The doubles was always closer than it looked," said Argentina captain Daniel Orsanic. "We'd just lost a couple of decisive points to go behind so I knew we could come back.
"Now we're going to celebrate with some beers...and then some more beers."
The result gave Argentina their third World Team Cup title following victories in 1980 and 2002. For the Czech Republic it was a fourth defeat from four appearances in the final.
LONG DELAY
The pick of the matches in a final that stretched over more than seven hours -- partly due to a lengthy rain delay -- was the opening singles between Berdych and Chela.
Berdych recovered from an early break in the first set only to lose his serve immediately, missing two attempted backhand winners to give Chela a 5-3 lead.
Berdych went into attack mode at the start of the second set and the world number 12 soon had a 3-0 lead with one break.
Chela stayed pinned to the baseline and he was unable to regain the initiative, with Berdych sealing the set with an ace on the first of two setpoints in game nine.
The match stayed with serve in the third set either side of a 90-minute rain break and Berdych snatched victory 7-5 on the tiebreak thanks to two overhit forehands from a tiring Chela on the crucial points.
A victory for Hajek against Calleri would have been enough to see the Czechs home but the Argentine broke once in the first set and ran away with the second to complete victory in one hour 12 minutes.
Calleri and Acasuso made too many mistakes in the first set of the doubles and looked down and out when they went a break behind in the second. Calleri suddenly lifted his game, however, hitting a series of winners to haul his side back level and set up a memorable finale.
"This is a very important tournament and we always wanted to win it," said Calleri. "Taking this title will give us great confidence going into Roland Garros."
