Djokovic leads Serbia to ATP Cup win
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Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal and then went back on court within an hour and won the deciding doubles encounter to secure Serbia’s victory over Spain in the inaugural ATP Cup final.
Second-ranked Djokovic had a 6-2, 7-6 (4) win over top-ranked Nadal last night in Sydney to level the final after Roberto Bautista Agut had given Spain a 1-0 lead by beating Dusan Lajovic 7-5, 6-1 in the first singles match.
After enlarging his lead to 29-26 in career head-to-heads with Nadal and extending his supremacy over the Spaniard on hardcourts, he combined with Victor Troicki in a 6-3, 6-4 win over Pablo Carreno Busta and Feliciano Lopez.
Nadal, who hasn’t beaten Djokovic on a hard surface since the 2013 US Open final, withdrew from the doubles match, citing fatigue. Lopez got the late call-up for the crucial doubles match.
“I have been playing a lot of tennis the last couple of days. My level of energy is a little bit lower than usual, because I played long yesterday, very long before yesterday, very long in (Perth),” Nadal said. “So is a team decision, and we believe in our team. That’s why we had success in the past, because we were able to give the confidence to the rest of the players, and we give the confidence to Feliciano and Pablo.”
After playing six singles matches and two doubles matches in 10 days — on both the west and east coasts of Australia — less than two months after guiding Spain to the Davis Cup title in Madrid, Nadal urged the International Tennis Federation and the ATP to negotiate to form one world team championship.
“I think (ATP Cup) is a great competition, but at the same time — I can’t change my mind that two World Cups in one month is not real. So is not possible,” he said. “So we need to find a way to fix it and we need to find a way to make a big deal with ITF and ATP to create a big World Team Cup competition, not two. I think that’s a confusion for the spectators, and we need to be clear in our sport.”
Spain’s early lead put extra pressure on Djokovic, a seven-time Australian Open champion, to keep Serbia in contention. He hadn’t lost a singles match at the new 24-team tournament, and started like losing wasn’t a consideration.
“We get to play a lot of exciting points. There were some incredible exchanges today,” Djokovic said. “I started off the match, perfectly, really. Everything worked for me.”
The doubles drew the curtain on an event that proved a big hit with players and fans, dishing up competitive matches driven by the passion of athletes representing their home countries.
Some US$15 million in prize money was at stake along with up to 750 singles and 250 doubles ATP rankings points.
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