For the round of the last eight there could be a big comeback: The Spanish Davis Cup captain Sergi Bruguera wants to get Rafael Nadal to play against Germany.
In the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup, Germany will be able to reach Spain – a nice task, which Michael Kohlmann’s team does not consider to be an underdog after the performances shown in Brisbane. Especially since the Spaniards had a surprisingly difficult time at the start against Great Britain without Andy Murray and also without the Australian Open semi-finalist Kyle Edmund – who was in the team but not in action -.
It was Albert Ramos-Vinolas who finally scored the decisive points for the Iberians, equalizing the defeat of Roberto Bautista Agut on Sunday.
For the encounter with the German team, however, another left-hander could move into the line-up of neo-captain Sergi Bruguera: Rafael Nadal. At least Bruguera expressed himself cautiously in this direction.
“Yes, Rafa is very motivated and looks forward to returning to the Davis Cup team and winning the title again,”Bruguera told the TV station El Mundo,”Sometimes a player’s body just needs a rest and has to adapt to different surfaces.”
Nadal had to retire from the quarter-finals of the Australian Open against Marin Cilic due to injury. The next tasks for the first place in the world rankings are the tournaments in Acapulco, Indian Wells and Miami. All of them on hard court, but in contrast to Melbourne only in the best-of-three format.
The quarter-finals in the Davis Cup are scheduled for the weekend from 6. till 8. This is scheduled for April, immediately after the Masters-1000 tournament in Miami.
Nadal’s participation would probably not only have an effect on the surface on which the game is played: With regard to the sandy course season that starts there, ashes are almost obligatory. It is also conceivable that the Spanish Tennis Association would meet its superstar geographically, the meeting on the home island of Nadals, Mallorca. Nadal’s record in the Davis Cup is almost flawless: The man from Manacor has only lost one of 23 individual matches, and Nadal’s last match in 2016 in the Spaniards’ relegation duel against India was a win in the national team – at that time, however, only in doubles alongside Marc Lopez.
Depending on the subsoil, Michael Kohlmann naturally also has questions about the most promising line-up: In addition to the seeded Alexander Zverev, a return of Philipp Kohlschreiber as a single player would be conceivable, especially since Kohlschreiber is still one of the world’s top players. With Jan-Lennard Struff and Tim Pütz, the Germans are now excellently positioned in doubles.