The magic of the Davis Cup, as they call it, is no longer such… In fact, the history of the competition that yielded results beyond all logic worked halfway in Malaga, where for example 8 of the 14 singles matches were guided by the ranking forecast and the highest ranked player won.
The only team that magic played a trick on in both games was Spain, because in their quarterfinal tie both Pablo Carreño and Roberto Bautista lost to lower players on the ATP list. Carreno, 13°lost to Marin Cilic, 17°and Baptist, 21°before Borna Coric, 26°.
The result furthest from classification theory was the victory of Jan-Lennard Struff, number 152, over Denis Shapovalov, 18°. A bad premiere for the Canadian, which, however, He finally raised the champion salad bowl.
The victory of the Italian Lorenzo Sonego, 45th, over the American Frances Tiafoe, 19th, did not respect the ranking hierarchy either.
Already in the semifinals, Shapovalov returned to give one of his pursuers joy by falling to Lorenzo Sonego (45th), confirmed as a great competitor of Davis; and De Minaur (24th) passed over Cilic (17th). In the other eight individual matches of this final phase, those who the ranking said they had to win won.
In the four doubles matches played, it was more difficult to apply logic due to the changes introduced by the captains in some regular pairings. But the big surprises were the defeat of the Germans Tim Puetz and Kevin Krawietz, undefeated in Davis and that they had eight victories in a row as a couple, against the Canadians Vasek Pospisil and Denis Shapovalov; and, above all, that of the Croatians Mate Pavic and Nikola Mektic, runners-up last week in the ATP finals, in the semifinals against the Australians Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson.
