Nadal hits heights to end British cup run
World No1 inspires win over Murray and Skupski Spanish reach Davis Cup final to delight home fans
The shout from the crowd was “Nadal presidente”, as the world No1 almost single-handedly ended Great Britain’s magnificent run at the Caja Magica last night. But there was a cynical side to Spain’s victory, which opened with a last-minute switch of personnel that Dan Evans described as “a little bit naughty”.
Tennis-wise, Spain deserved their victory. Etiquette-wise, they let themselves down by needlessly bluffing over their choice of second singles player. Declaring their team an hour before the scheduled start, they picked Pablo Carreno Busta, a classic righthanded grinder from the clay-court tradition. But with just five minutes to go, they whipped Busta out and replaced him with left-handed serve-volleyer Feliciano Lopez.
Edmund called it “mind games” while his team-mate Dan Evans said that the last-minute shift had been “a little naughty”. But Edmund dealt with the situation brilliantly as he walloped Feliciano Lopez to claim the first point of the Davis Cup semi-final.
In the second rubber, Evans then suffered the straight-sets defeat that tends to befall anyone who goes up against world No1 Rafael Nadal in this competition. This left the whole shooting match to be decided by the doubles rubber – which pitted Nadal and Lopez against the specialist pairing of Jamie Murray and Neal Skupski.
The match was so tightly fought that there were no breaks of serve, only a pair of tie-breaks, which Nadal dominated with his muscular hitting and intense focus. In the end, Spain’s 7-6, 7-6 victory sent them through to the final tonight.
Earlier, Spanish captain Sergi Bruguera had used a little-known rule from the Davis Cup handbook to try to ruffle Edmund. “I found out five minutes before,” the Britain said later. “Busta actually came to warm up. He was on the bike two minutes, then he left. I said straightaway, ‘Something is a bit weird there.’ Then straightaway the guy [Lopez] came in. “On paper maybe they didn’t do anything wrong. But yeah, about the spirit… it happens in football, little mind games. But I was just, like, ‘Yeah, OK, let’s go, let’s play.’”
The rules say that you can make a change at the last minute if the doctor on site agrees that there is an injury involved. In this case, Spain cited a leftleg problem for Busta. The awkwardness here is that Busta had clearly been struggling at the end of his match in Friday’s quarter-final against Argentina, so every smart observer knew he was going to be touch and go. A rule designed for last-minute strains and sprains was being abused in the hope of creating uncertainty in the British team.
Lopez certainly presented a very different challenge. He is a left-handed serve-volleyer who plays a decidedly untypical game for a Spaniard. British tennis fans will remember the lethality of his serve and forehand from the doubles partnership that Lopez struck up with Andy Murray at Queen’s this summer, seeing off all opposition to lift the title in a thrilling boost to Murray’s comeback. The tactics used by Edmund yesterday, and cooked up in cahoots with team captain Leon Smith, had to be ripped up at the last possible instant. But Edmund started the match with three straight aces, although the huge Spanish crowd roared in celebration when his fourth serve hit the net.
Edmund still held to love, and promptly broke Lopez in the next game. He would maintain this advantage throughout the first set. Edmund was able to dominate from the back of the court, using his huge forehand to boss his rival around, but as soon as Lopez arrived at the net, he was almost flawless. Edmund staved off some real pressure moments in the second set, notably a 15-40 service game that he escaped with another ace and some ferocious strikes from that bazooka of a forehand. One he had forced a tiebreak, Lopez seemed to tighten up, sending down a double-fault to surrender the initiative – and, a few minutes later, the match 6-3, 7-6.
That left Great Britain just one point away from the Davis Cup final and a crack at Canada, who had earlier overcome Russia by the tightest of margins. But to win that point, they needed to get past the world’s best player.
Nadal came into yesterday’s semi-final on a run of 29 consecutive wins in the Davis Cup, across both the singles and doubles format, which is the longest in the 119-year history of the competition. That soon became 30 after he outclassed British No 1 Dan Evans in the singles. The early stages were competitive, as Evans buzzed about the court like a mosquito. There were even a couple of signs that Nadal was feeling discomfited, notably when he wagged his index finger furiously at a linejudge who had made a bad call.
But as Evans served at 4-5 in the first set, Nadal entered a zone of focus that carried him through the rest of the match without losing another game.
His forehand was at its ferocious best, and over the last year or so he has beefed up his serve into a real weapon. The mosquito hit Nadal’s rolled-up newspaper and that was the end of the contest.