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Team New Zealand will have a breather tomorrow before resuming their bid to grab the one win that will take them through to the America's Cup challengers' yachting final.
The Louis Vuitton Cup has a rest day, with Team NZ and Spain's Desafio Espanol recommencing their semifinal off
Valencia early on Wednesday (NZT).
The New Zealanders are on match point and could have joined Italy's Luna Rossa today in next month's final, which will decide who will face Swiss defenders Alinghi for the America's Cup.
But Desafio produced another upset in 12 to 16-knot winds to close the gap to 4-2.
"I think we'll have a day off and see what we get on (Wednesday)," Team NZ skipper Dean Barker said.
"The potential is for a pretty good breeze so it could be a bit of change from what we've had over the last wee while."
So far, the semifinals haven't gone exactly to script.
Desafio were the bottom qualifiers and the No 1-ranked Team NZ were expected to take the short route in overcoming them.
Luna Rossa and Americans Oracle Racing were seen as likely to go the full distance of nine races, with Oracle favoured to be the ones left standing.
As it turned out, their contest was the first to finish, with Luna Rossa completing a 5-1 victory today.
With just 12 days before the final begins, Barker said Team NZ would obviously like to be in the position the Italians were in.
But they had predicted the Spaniards would put up a tough fight, and so it had proved.
"You certainly can't afford to drop your guard," Barker said.
"If you get any decision slightly wrong, or don't get the better of the start or whatever, if you give them a sniff of the lead, they're very hard team to pass."
That scenario was played out in the latest race, with Desafio gaining a slight lead up the first beat on the back of a right-hand windshift and guarding it to the end.
The margins were small around the race track, but always just enough for the Spaniards to protect.
NZ92 closed to eight seconds around the final mark, but a less-than-perfect gybe on the run home allowed ESP97 to extend the gap to 15 seconds at the finish.
Desafio's victory was greeted with jubilation on board, almost as if they had won the Auld Mug itself.
Skipper Karol Jablonski said he and his crew were just happy to be still in contention against strong opponents.
The encounter was more about match-racing than picking the wind shifts, he said.
"We were close and knew we had to protect the right-hand side," he said.
"We were able to survive. It's not possible to make the right calls every day. This is a game of mistakes. Sometimes you're fine and sometimes you're wrong."
Oracle produced a pre-race surprise as they tried to keep their hopes alive, with owner Larry Ellison taking New Zealand skipper and helmsman Chris Dickson off their boat.
Dickson, also the syndicate's chief executive, had been outgunned in the pre-starts by young Australian rival James Spithill and was replaced as skipper by tactician fellow New Zealander Gavin Brady.
Denmark's Sten Mohr, the back-up helmsman, took the wheel of USA98.
But the changes couldn't stop Luna Rossa's charge, with Spithill again dominant at the start and the Italians continuing their remarkable feat of leading at every mark of the semifinal.
After the 33sec victory, Spithill said Luna Rossa had learnt from their race-two defeat, when they were ahead for most the journey, but were run down on the final leg.
"A team like Oracle are so strong that if you make one little mistake, they jump on you and make you pay for it," he said.
"We certainly weren't going to make that mistake again. No matter how big or small the lead was, we kept the focus and finished the job off."
- NZPA
