Daniil Medvedev announced that he would not compete in the Davis Cup and Russian coach Shamil Tarpishchev was quick to say yesterday that " with Medvedev we could have fought not only for qualifying for the quarterfinals , but for the victory in the tournament." The captain wanted to lower pressure on his players and feed his motivation. Bruguera , Spanish captain, was not convinced despite the absence of the US Open finalist: "Their loss does not affect them so much because they are Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev and have a powerful team."
Said and done.
Rublev beat Gojo and Khachanov soared before Coric to add the first victory of the Russian team, which tomorrow from 18 hours will be measured in Spain on the central court of the Magic Box. Rublev was infinitely superior to the unknown Croatian, number 2 of his country later and 280 of the world, present in Madrid for Cilic's injury. The 22-year-old Russian, number 23 in the world, finished the match by a double 6-3 in just over an hour. Tomorrow he will face, if nothing changes, Baptist .
Khachanov had to suffer much more . The irregular Russian talent lost the first set 6-7 to Coric, a young Croatian star, but managed to turn the scoreboard with a double 6-4 to the delight of the dozens of fans in his country present at the center. The 23-year-old tennis player, number 17 in the world and champion of the Paris Masters in 2018, will be the rival of Rafa Nadal in the second round of this Tuesday's match.
Croatia, which is not yet eliminated, will have to wait until Wednesday to jump back on the track, again in the afternoon shift and this time against Spain.
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