No place for Spain at the Davis Cup finals in Malaga this November

Spain have been eliminated from the Davis Cup following a 0-3 defeat to Serbia in Valencia on Friday, coming as a massive disappointment for tennis fans on the Costa del Sol.

This is because Spain will not be one of the eight teams participating in the tournament’s finals which will be taking place at the Martín Carpena sports arena in Malaga city from 19 to 26 November.

After a 0-3 loss to the Czech Republic on Wednesday, David Ferrer’s team needed to beat Serbia to stand any chance of progressing. In fact, even a 2-1 win could have been enough in combination with other results.

However, everything went wrong. In the first match, Albert Ramos (ranked 95th) suffered a straight-set defeat (4-6 4-6) to Laslo Djere (ranked 37th), then it was down to Malaga’s Alejandro Davidovich to save the day. Unfortunately for him, it was Novak Djokovic who stood in the way.

Davidovich put up a good fight and even took a break lead in the second set, which briefly lifted the spirits of the Spanish fans. However, Djokovic eventually took control, exploiting Davidovich’s errors, and secured the win (3-6 4-6) – further extending the unbeaten Davis Cup run he has maintained since 2011.

With defeat already sealed, Spain even lost the subsequent doubles match, with Davidovich and Marcel Granollers losing 0-2 to Nikola Cacic and Miomir Kecmanovic.

The Spanish Davis Cup team came into this week with several key absentees.

Davidovich, currently ranked 25th in the world, unexpectedly became the team’s number one player after Carlos Alcaraz withdrew because of the muscle injury he picked up in the US Open.

In addition to Alcaraz, the Spain team also had cope with the absences of both Rafael Nadal and Pablo Carreño, who are both outside the top 100 due to inactivity.

As a result, Albert Ramos, a 35-year-old veteran from Barcelona, was called up, meaning a rather depleted roster would be competing: Davidovich, Ramos, Roberto Bautista (ranked 42nd despite being sidelined since mid-July), Bernabé Zapata (ranked 75th) and doubles specialist Marcel Granollers.

Spain was expected to have a relatively smooth path to the Finals in Malaga, but with these setbacks, their journey became more challenging and this early departure from the tournament will have consequences for future rankings.

Credit: Surinenglish