OVIEDO, SPAIN: Spain confirmed its status as the leading nation in
Davis Cup by BNP Paribas by completing a 5-0 whitewash of Kazakhstan on
the final day of the first round tie between the two World Group
nations.
The defending champions had sealed their place in April’s
quarterfinals after impressive performances from Juan Carlos Ferrero and
Nicolas Almagro in the singles on Friday, and Marc Lopez and Marcel
Granollers in yesterday’s doubles, but returned to the Palacio del los
Deportes de Oviedo determined to show that they have the depth needed to
retain the Davis Cup in 2012.
Evgeny Korolev replaced the injured Mikhail Kukushkin for Kazakhstan
for the first of the reverse dead singles rubbers, hoping for a better
performance on the court that he’d mustered in yesterday’s doubles. But
Almagro, the Spanish No. 1, although not at the level he showed against
Andrey Golubev on Friday, was too consistent for the Kazakh No. 3,
needing just a single break of serve in the fifth game to take the first
set 6-3.
Korolev stayed with Almagro throughout the second set, until forced
to serve to stay in the match at 4-5. Fashioning match point off a
Korolev error, Almagro converted it to win his fifth Davis Cup singles
rubber 63 64 and put Spain 4-0 ahead.
The fifth and final rubber played out between Golubev and Granollers,
making his Davis Cup singles debut. The 25-year-old Barcelona native
did not disappoint, breaking to lead 3-1 in the opening set, before
serving it out 63 as Golubev tried and failed to find a way back in to
the match.
“When you start, you always dream to win, and if it’s 5-0 it’s even
better,” Corretja said. "The main thing for me was to win, but today
it’s important, when you go on the court you need to try your best, so
I’m pleased to see that we also won again…thanks to all the team."
“Since the first day, we practise very well, we prepared the tie very
focused, never easy to play on clay again after such a long time since
the last tournament,” said Ferrero, who celebrated his 32nd birthday
today. “It’s always nice to win 5-0, we expect that, but always you have
to show it on the court, so we’re very happy about it.”
