The 2008 Davis Cup final is still a thorn that hurts. The wound never healed and both the fans and the protagonists themselves continue to hurt as if it were yesterday. In that year, David Nalbandian and Juan Martín Del Potro were the main references of Argentine tennis. They led the team until the last match, but they could not beat a Spain that appeared, in Mar del Plata, without Rafael Nadal.
Before the series was played, everything seemed to be on track for Argentina to achieve its first Saladera. King David was ranked 11th in the world and with two titles under his belt, while Delpo was in the top-10 (9th) with four trophies and the possibility of competing in the Masters Tournament at the end of the season. Despite both being at a superlative level, physically they were not at the same level, since days before Juan Martín Del Potro had played the ATP Finals in Shanghai (China), while David Nalbandian no.
Faced with this, the former Córdoba tennis player held nothing back and fulminated against the Tandil native for having arrived with little energy to one of the most important matches in the history of Argentine tennis that could have been the first Salad Bowl for Argentina. “We should have won the final against Spain, without a doubt. But we all arrived on a different wavelength. Things happened on a sporting level that I didn’t like, but we had to go play and win. Del Potro arrived with very little energy after playing the Masters”began in dialogue with Juan Pablo Versky in “Clank!”
The final began in favor of Argentina with the victory of David Nalbandian against Almagro, but the second point went to the Spanish after the defeat of Juan Martín Del Potro against Feliciano López, the third point (doubles) also went to the Europeans and the fourth point was the most controversial, since it was played by José Acasuso, instead of the Tandilense. A situation that generated frustration in the Cordoban.
Source: (Clank!)
“Playing in the Davis final is not something you play every day and you have to prepare for it, not arrive with the inertia of the year. If it was good, perfect, but his was not. He arrives tired and loses to Feliciano López in a match that he should not lose. If he had played 1,000 games against him, he would have beaten him in 1,002. Del Potro did not want to play the fourth point of the tie and neither did Calleri. It was Acasuso’s turn to play, who wasn’t even there to play doubles”, he concluded.
The change of venue for Nadal
After the victory against Russia in the semifinals, Argentina knew that it had to face Spain, which had Rafael Nadal as its standard bearer and No. 1 in the world. Therefore, as they were local, they had the power to choose the venue where the possibility of taking the final to Córdoba was raised to counteract Rafa’s play, but after his absence (tendinitis in the right knee), it was changed to Mar del Plata.
“It was proposed to play in Córdoba because of the height and to harm Nadal, since then he had planned to come. He didn’t like to play at height because it was a bit too much for him. Both Del Potro and I felt that we had a better chance of beating Nadal in a city with some altitude than at sea level. We played in Mar del Plata (hard court) because we were facing Spain, if it had been another country we would have played in Parque Roca. The only one that gets you out of playing on clay is Spain. And when Nadal was absent, I have no doubt that the best thing for us was to play in Mar del Plata,” he concluded. David Nalbandian.
