Nadal along with his Rio Olympics gold medalist partner Marc Lopez defeated Leander Paes and Saketh Myneni 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-4 in the doubles rubber to complete his mission. That one comes when he’s 0-4 down in the third set, a love game that he finishes off with a 170kmph second serve ace.
Advertisement
The first set saw both the players lose serve within the first three games but Ferrer broke Ramkumar thrice and only lost serve once to win the first set 6-2 in 31 minutes after Ramkumar netted a backhand slice.
Feliciano Lopez claimed a four-set victory over India’s Ramkumar Ramanathan to give Spain a 1-0 lead after the first singles match in the Davis Cup World Group playoff in New Delhi on Friday.
The last time Lopez played a singles match on the Tour was in 2014 at Barcelona and that was only singles he played on the Tour that year. India could have broken back in the next game but wasted 2 break points to send the set into a tie-breaker.
Lopez added that Nadal might well play the doubles or on the last day on Sunday depending on how he feels.
Playing his 54th tie, Leander Paes was eyeing a record of most number of doubles wins in the Cup history.
Through the match, Ramanathan stays within touching distance of Lopez without ever giving the impression that he can actually win.
Amidst all this, Nadal turned up at the courtside to cheer his team as the crowd broke into loud cheer. The Spaniard was up 40-15 but the Indians took the next three point with Myneni hitting a backhand cross court victor to pocket the break.
Paes was speaking to the media after partnering Saketh Myneni in a hard-fought men’s doubles loss to Olympic champions Rafael Nadal and Marc Lopez in the ongoing Davis Cup.
Lopez won the first set inside three quarters of a hour, riding on the break that he secured in just the second game when the butterflies in Nagal’s stomach had yet to vanish.
If Team India had hoped that the absence of the World No. 4 would make the competition slightly easier for them, they were in for a disappointment as Spain never relented.
“Just goes to show how much we have to improve to compete with Spain or other teams”. “Even Marc was feeling the heat but he was probably two per cent better than me at that point of time”. One wonders then how Lopez had no clue about the bug. Breaking Lopez twice, Sumit Nagal was able to tie the rubber 1-1 by winning the second set in 26 minutes. “The fans are passionate here and it is great for the players and good for our sport”.
Advertisement
With this win over Indian, Spain took a lead of 3-0 to easily qualify for the World Group.
