• Narration: So we live the game
  • Classification: This is the group from Spain

It remains to be seen if the revolutionary format of the new Davis Cup has just curdled, but it is clear that matches like the one played between Roberto Bautista and Andrey Rublev fully respond to the spirit that has always characterized this competition. In a struggle of high emotional component, with numerous errors on both fronts, Andrey Rublev surpassed Roberto Bautista by 3-6, 6-3 and 7-6 (0), in two hours and 40 minutes, and gave the first point to Russia in the Spanish debut in the group stage. Shamil Tarpischev's team already has Monday's victory at the crossroads with Croatia.

Little accurate when converting the break options, the Russian had to wait until the ninth, in the eighth game of the second set, to start balancing a game that seemed to escape after giving up his serve in the second game of the final set . Davis is not a grateful competition with Baptist, willing to face even the most delicate situations. In 2014 he had to certify the fall of Spain from the World Group after almost two decades, losing in Sao Paulo the final point against Thomaz Bellucci. In the Magic Box he spent more than a bad time, far away from the player who has been in reserve in the recent ATP Finals as number nine in the world and reached in the last Wimbledon his first semifinals of a Grand Slam tournament.

Decisive in Vladivostok

The figure of Rublev refers to one of the worst moments in Spain in the history of the Davis Cup. In the summer of 2015, in Vladivostok, being still a kid, the ruddy Russian player gave the point of victory to his country against Pablo Andújar and sent the team then captained by Conchita Martinez to fight against Denmark, for the permanence in Group I of the Euro-African zone. They were critical times at the sports and institutional level, after the schism with José Luis Escañuela, outgoing president of the Spanish Federation. With Nadal to the rescue, the pentacampeones escaped from the gap in Odense and would recover the place in the World Group after beating India at home a year later.

Rublev has progressed properly and today he is number 23 in the world, weeks after conquering in Moscow the second title of his career. Just turned 22, he is one of the players called to occupy space in the elite. Without making a good game, he profited the 56 unforced errors of the Spanish, which was decomposing as the outcome arrived. It was Rublev who most exposed to a entrenched Baptist, far from the bottom line, without the character that demands a tournament as special as this one. He had easily won the Muscovite in his two circuit games, but he was trapped by the weight of the shirt.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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