Novak Djokovic is just two places behind Rafael Nadal in the world rankings, but on Sunday it felt like a chasm.
World No. 3 Djokovic slumped to a 6-4, 6-4, 6-1 defeat to Nadal as defending champions Spain romped into the Davis Cup quarter-finals with a 4-1 first-round victory over Serbia.
Djokovic admitted he was in awe of the Spaniard, who showed no ill-effects from the knee injury that had kept him off the circuit for a month before the Benidorm clay-court tie.
PHOTO: AFP
“He showed why he’s the best in the world and so dominant on this surface,” Djokovic said after his 11th defeat to the world No. 1 in 15 career meetings. “It’s hard to play against someone like Nadal who makes the transition from defense to offense so fast. It was very hard to overcome Spain in Spain.”
Nadal had been even more impressive on Saturday when he lost just three games in swatting aside Janko Tipsarevic, a win built on putting together a run of 11 successive games.
“This was a very important win for me and Spain against a very big opponent,” Nadal said after his victory over Djokovic. “I wasn’t thinking about the 11 games I won in a row against Tipsarevic. I just focus on the match and do not worry about how good people might think I am.”
Spain, who won the Davis Cup last year despite Nadal missing the final against Argentina because of injury, next tackle Germany at home in the quarter-finals in July in the week after Wimbledon.
It will be a repeat of last year’s quarter-final tie in Bremen when Spain came out on top 4-1.
“We played them last year at home and lost,” Nicolas Kiefer said, whose eighth career win in eight meetings with Jurgen Melzer helped Germany to a 3-2 win over Austria. “If we go to Spain and play them on clay, it’s 99.9 percent that they will win. But our objective was to reach the quarter-finals.”
The US, 32-time champions, eased past a Switzerland team missing the injured Roger Federer and will travel to face 2005 champions Croatia.
Andy Roddick, who won both his singles to take his career tally to 31 in the tournament, second only to John McEnroe, is not sure that the Croatians would select a clay surface, given the country’s supply of big hitters.
“I’m not convinced that it will be on clay at all, we’ll have to see,” Roddick said.
Israel defied violent demonstrations as well as a virtually empty stadium in Malmo to come from behind and beat Sweden 3-2 and reach the quarter-finals for only the second time.
Harel Levy sealed the crucial point by beating Andreas Vinciguerra 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 3-6, 8-6 after Israel had started the final day 2-1 down. Israel will welcome Russia in July in what will be their first quarter-final since 1987.
The match had been played behind closed doors as protesters, demonstrating against Israel’s bloody December Gaza offensive, clashed with police outside. Israel captain Eyal Ran tried to forget the furore over the protests.
“I think tennis was the winner this weekend,” Ran said.
This year’s remaining quarter-final will be between the Czech Republic, who put out France, and last year’s runners-up Argentina, who whitewashed the Netherlands.
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