Reigning French Open doubles victor Feliciano Lopez will instead play the first men’s singles clash against rookie Ramanathan, which will take place at Delhi’s RK Khanna Stadium on Friday. 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.
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However, the 14-time grand slam champion was replaced by Feliciano Lopez, with Spanish captain Conchita Martinez hopeful Nadal will be fit to play in the reverse singles on Sunday.
The tie-break win was enough to get the best out of Nadal, who showed flashes of his brilliance to entertain the capacity crowd. Both players held on to their serves initially before Ferrer broke Ramanathan’s serve in the sixth game to take 4-2 lead.
The second rubber turned out to be a completely one-sided affair with the World No. 13 Ferrer outclassing India’s No. 1 singles player Myneni, 6-1, 6-2, 6-1. “So he might play one of these days”, he added.
Now world number four Nadal has been pivotal in Spain’s four (2004, 2008, 2009 2011) of the five Davis Cup title wins and Ferrer too has played a significant role in three of those title triumphs (2008, 2009, 2011). We think the doubles tie will be very tough, very equal. He was all praise for the Indian team and the fight that they put up. “I could play with intensity and consistently in this humid conditions”.
However, the youngster came back strong in the second and beat the Spaniard 6-1 to draw level. Still, they saw at least a few spells of competitive, compelling tennis from all four players.
“It’s always special playing in countries and in front of fans that you don’t get to play very often”, he said.
But the left-handed Nadal, who was guilty of committing a lot of unforced errors in the first two sets, attacked the net with great success as Spain dominated the final two. He was playing in the US Open with the same wrist issue. Lopez promptly closed out the first set 6-3 without much incidents. There was no more tournaments to win, I could not create anymore tournaments. Sad. The 19-year-old from Jhajjar district of Haryana now trains in Germany for last few years and that’s why he was as odd to the humid conditions of Delhi as his counterpart.
Leander Paes, who was looking for a record win in doubles in Davis Cup, asked the crowd for a standing ovation for the Spaniards.
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In his post match press conference, Lopez told the media that they had known all week that he might play instead of Rafa as he had been struggling with his wrist, which had also forced him to withdraw from the French Open earlier this year.
