Spain and Netherlands both Looking to Regroup
06 Apr 2004 - Richard Evans
Spain and Netherlands both Looking to Regroup
The Spanish and Dutch players gathering on the beautiful island of Mallorca
for the World Group quarter final of the Davis Cup will need to re-group and
put some recent memories behind them.
Carlos Moya, who will be returning to his home town to play in front of
adoring crowds, will be trying to eradicate the painful memory of a seemingly
needless loss to Andy Roddick at the Nasdaq-100 Open. Moya was en route for
victory when he served for a place in the semi-final and reached 30-15.
Then a terrible forehand, a double fault and another bad forehand handed the
American a life line that came snaking out of the clear blue Florida skies
and Roddick grabbed it.
“It was a bad loss,” Moya admitted afterwards.
“It’s very painful. At 30-15, 5-4, I’m going to win 95% of those matches.
But that was one of the worst games I ever played. But maybe tomorrow I’m
going to start to think about Davis Cup. That’s the good thing about tennis
– you lose today but next week there’s another tournament.”
On the Dutch side Sjeng Schalken will be trying to rid himself of a different
kind of memory. The Dire Straights fan from the small town of Weert got
himself into some very dire straights at the Nasdaq when he shocked friends
and colleagues alike by suddenly blowing up during his match with Guillermo
Canas and abusing the umpire.
The tirade came from nothing more than a controversial line call but it got
Schalken defaulted. “He’s normally such a quiet, shy guy,” said a
bewildered Canas.
Schalken will no doubt be back to his normal self when he joins his team
mates and captain Tjerk Bogtstra for a tie that may not be as straightforward
as it looks. Obviously Spain, with home court advantage, will be clear
favourites but Schalken is a very experienced performer who finished last
year ranked 18th in the world and, in addition, Martin Vekerk has shown signs
of re-discovering the kind of form that enabled him to shock the tennis world
by reaching the final of the French Open last June. Ramon Sluiter is also a
threat in Davis Cup where he thrives on the team format and almost invariably
produces better performances than he does on the ATP tour.
But much will depend on the health of Spanish No 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero who
has been forced to miss both the year’s opening ATP Tennis Masters Series
events with a bout of chickenpox. If captain Jordi Arrese feels that Ferrero
is still too weak to last through five sets of intense Davis Cup play, he
will probably turn to another Mallorcan, 17-year-old Rafael Nadal who proved
at Key Biscayne that he was ready for the big time.
Nadal produced a stunning display of power hitting to demolish world No 1
Roger Federer at the Nasdaq and, although he lost to Chile’s ferocious
Fernando Gonzalez in the next round, the teenager is obviously capable of
handling anyone.
Despite Spain’s big guns, recent history between these two teams favours the
Dutch. They won the last encounter, cruelly depriving Spain of the Cup it had
won so joyously against Australia in Barcelona little more than two months
before. That was played indoors in Eindhoven.
But even on red Spanish clay, Holland has proved itself capable of winning,
beating Spain 3-2 in 1993 when the tie was played at the Olympic Stadium in
Barcelona. So anything can happen although one thing is sure. It is highly
unlikely these two teams will ever meet again on grass as they did back
in 1923 when their European Zone semi-final was played at Devonshire Park in
Eastbourne. Spain won that won 5-0.
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