Without Carlos Alcaraz, injured, and without Rafael Nadal, doseor the Spanish Davis Cup team their participation in the final eight will begin in Malaga this Tuesday against their worst possible rivals, Croatia, who top the competition’s rankings and were runners-up last year.
The captain’s choice Sergi Bruguera will attack again at the top of the world team tennis supported by local fans -almost all sold in Martín Carpena- and a group of players who, despite the absence of world number one and two, are capable of winning a new salad bowl , which would be the seventh for Spain.
Pablo Carreño (13 ATP), Roberto Bautista (21), Albert Ramos (39), Pedro Martínez (62) and Albert Granollers (17 in doubles) They make up the team, predictable with the first two in charge of the individual matches and with a pair of doubles that will make up Granollers and another player who has already decided, but Bruguera does not want to reveal until the last moment. Carreño and Bautista are already champions in 2019, as is doubles player Marcel Granollers, who has three titles.
In front, Croatia arrived in the Andalusian city with a whole ‘Davis man’, Marin Cilic (17 ATP), nominated 27 times, including this year’s winner of the Cincinnati Masters 1000 Borna Coric (26), in Borna Gojo (145) is one of the best doubles couples in the world, consisting of Pavic and Nikola Mektic (5 and 8 in doubles), runner-up in the ATP finals on Sunday.
The Croats have won the salad bowl twice, the first in 2005 and the second in 2018, still with a home/away format, and they have played in three of the last five finals: 2016, 2018 and 2021. In the absence of The Russian by sanction, they can be unofficially considered the defending champions.
Three times out of three, Spain beat Croatia in the Davis Cup. The last precedent already exists in the new format in the 2019 group stage played in Madrid, with a 3-0 Spanish victory, en route to their sixth salad bowl.
Cilic prevailed over Carreño in four of their five meetings, but lost in the last one, at the Tokyo Olympics. Roberto Bautista and Borna Coric tied 4-4 in their previous meetings.
As for the doubles, even the Spanish team openly admits that the Croats are favorites. “They played a lot of matches together and the surface, fast and indoors, favors them,” Granollers told EFE, who however warned that most doubles matches “were decided by two or three points” and Spain will try this time to stay at home if the match is played.
Its premiere at this final stage will coincide with the day and time of the Spanish soccer team’s Qatar 2022 debut against Costa Rica. “A Davis Cup and in Spain you don’t see it every day,” warned Roberto Bautista to request the presence of fans in Carpena.
“We all want to see Spain fight and support them from afar, but the Davis Cup is a very special event,” he insisted. “I’m sure the stadium will be full. With a tie as strong as the one with Croatia we need everyone’s support”, said the number two in Spanish.
The winning team in this tie will face the winner of this Tuesday’s Australia-Netherlands which will open the competition. Italy-United States and Germany-Canada, both on Thursday, will complete the quarterfinals.
Source: La Verdad
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