Russia defeated Ecuador in the Davis Cup – 2021: Medvedev hung the wheel on Gomez, and Rublev defeated Kyros after hysteria
The Russian national team started its tournament path to the “Silver Salad Bowl” rather nervously. At the Davis Cup – 2021, in a match with Ecuador, Andrei Rublev was helped to defeat his opponent by an outburst of emotions, but Daniil Medvedev simply defeated the leader of the Latin Americans, hanging a steering wheel on him.
At the Davis Cup 2021, the group stage battles have been taking place since Thursday. Many teams have already won important victories. Particularly notable is the success of Novak Djokovic, who found his first fight on Friday after being defeated in the semifinals of the ATP Final Championship by Alexander Zverev. Djokovic in 59 minutes defeated another Novak, from Austria. Along the way, he set the world ranking record for Serbia for the number of Davis Cup fights won.
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In Group A, matches are played in Madrid, with the Spanish home team taking heavy losses. For various reasons, neither Nadal nor Bautista-Agut are participating. Already during training, the newly-minted champion of the Youth Final in Milan, Carlos Alcaraz, was out of action due to a positive test for covid. As a result, on the first day, a huge load fell on Pablo Carreno-Busta, who spent 6 sets on the court – first three alone, and then 3 in a pair. It is curious that the 40-year-old veteran Feliciano Lopez also brought an important point to the Spaniards. As a result, Spain won against Ecuador with a dry score – 3-0 and topped the table.
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Russia entered the fight only on the 3rd day. The starting rival of our tennis players was the same national team of Ecuador. It is important to note that Russia has a record representation of the top 30 at this tournament – four people, and two of them – Medvedev and Rublev – are generally in the top 5. And if our top four have a cumulative rating of 54, then only two leaders of Ecuador – Emilio Gomez and Roberto Quiros – have it equal to 440. And the rest are outside the top 500. In addition, the two leaders of the Ecuadorians in their entire careers have earned less than $ 1 million in total. While our Rublev and Medvedev received more than $ 10 million for their performances this season alone. As for titles, the Ecuadorians did not have them at the ATP level, and there were 27 victories in his career in total. For comparison, Daniil Medvedev won 58 matches this year before the Davis Cup.
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In general, 29-year-old Gomez and Quiros are exits from the famous Ecuadorian tennis family – Gomez-Lapentti-Quiros. Emilio’s father is the main sports star in Ecuador. In 1990, Andreas Gomez became the champion of Roland Garros, beating Andre Agassi himself in the final. Emilio and Roberto are cousins, but they have three more cousins who are well known in the tennis world – Nicholas, Giovanni and Leonardo Lapentti.
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According to the rules of the competition, each match between the national teams, consisting of two singles and one doubles. First, the pair combination of the second team numbers goes first, then the first, and only after that the pair combination goes through. Each team has five tennis players, and the captains, an hour before the start of the first fight, announce which of their five they will put up for singles. Which of these two nominated players is number one and who is second is determined strictly by the ATP rating. On Saturday evening it became known that the captains of both teams – Shamil Tarpishchev and Raul Weaver – put their strongest players on the singles. From Russia – Daniil Medvedev (1) and Andrei Rublev (2), from Ecuador – Emilio Gomez and Roberto Quiros.
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At the same time, the choice of Medvedev for the first match with Ecuador was not obvious, because before that Daniil had been at two tournaments in a row before the finals – at the Masters in Paris and the Final in Turin. Many believed that Medvedev was tired and needed rest. Some suggested that Tarpishchev might save Daniel for more important matches. “Time will tell if we should accept Medvedev on the bench, but the fact that he arrived in good shape is beyond doubt. Of course, he played well at the Final, I would like to win the final, but as it is. Difficulties may arise in terms of the fact that the games have begun, and he will not be given the opportunity to train on center court. The coverage in Madrid is a bit slower than at the Final Tournament, “two-time Davis Cup finalist Andrei Olkhovsky said in an interview with the Championship. And yet Medvedev was put up for the match with Ecuador.
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And the Russia-Ecuador match was opened by Andrei Rublev and Roberto Quiros. Andrey took the first set for the class. He made a break twice and could take another opponent’s serve, while he did not even come close to break points. As a result, in 28 minutes Rublev secured a convincing victory in the game – 6: 3. Something incredible happened in the second set. Left-hander Kyros adapted to Rublev’s killer forehand and skillfully kept his serve. And Andrey was constantly angry that he could not make a break for a long time and get an advantage. He hit the legs with a racket, bit the rim with his teeth.
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Well, when, with the score 4: 4, Roberto realized his only break point, Rublev finally got angry and threw the ball into the stands. For this, our team received a warning.
The score was 4: 5, after which the Ecuadorian confidently filed for the set – 4: 6. But the outburst of emotions in the second set, it seems, helped Rublev to pull himself together, and he spent the third game in one breath. In 25 minutes, the Russian gave the opponent only 1 game and brought the first point of the Russian national team – 6: 3, 4: 6, 6: 1.
Medvedev, like Rublev, also did not meet on the professional tour with the leaders of the Ecuadorian national team, but he had something to say about Emilio Gomez at the press conference before the match: “I think that every opponent is important, and it does not matter what the rating of the tennis players is. Precisely because there are many surprises to be seen throughout the season, the Davis Cup is a very special tournament. With the leader of the Ecuadorian national team, Emilio Gomez, I trained several times, so we both know what to expect from each other. Each match is a new challenge. At the same time, you play not only for yourself, but also for the country in order to successfully advance further. In my opinion, it does not depend on whether you play with Ecuador or with the Serbian national team led by Novak Djokovic, or with the hosts from Spain. You need to win every point in every fight, this is the only way to win the trophy. “
For the match with Gomez, the leader of the Russians came out charged for victory and allowed the opponent to win only 11 points, which was not even enough to take at least one game. In 25 minutes, Medvedev put an offensive steering wheel on Emilio – 6: 0. In the second game, to the delight of the Hispanic audience, the Latin American leader managed to win two of his games. And when Daniel, with a score of 5: 2, went to serve for the match, Gomez even achieved the first break point. However, the Russian immediately bounced back and brought the fight to victory – 6: 0, 6: 2.
So Medvedev brought our team a victory point in the match with Ecuador. Russia won the opening match ahead of schedule and, together with Spain, now shares the 1st place in Group A. On Sunday, these teams will compete for the first place in the group. The runner-up team also has a chance of reaching the playoffs. But additional indicators will be required there – fights won, sets or even games.