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by Pete Bodo*
Before we leave Davis Cup for good in 2011 (barring some extraordinary news), I want comment on a few outstanding statistics and/or facts that caught my eye this weekend. For starters, consider that Spain hasn't lost a tie in a record 21 home dates (lest you somehow think this is all Nadal's handiwork, the streak goes all the way back to 1999). So, can you name the last team and/or team members who got the better of Spain on its own turf?
If you guessed Brazil, you're right. In a first-round clash on outdoor clay at Lerida, Spain, in April of 1999, Gustavo Kuerten won both his singles matches (d. Carlos Moya and Alex Corretja) as well as the doubles rubber (w/Oncins) to force Spain into the playoff round for September. In case you're wondering, Brazil lost in the next round on indoor carpet in France. Kuerten never could produce a Davis Cup championship for Brazil, but that effort in Lerida belongs on the Davis Cup honor roll.
And how about the fact that Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer are a combined 27-0 in Davis Cup matches on clay? That's quite a statistic. Nadal is nearly perfect in singles without qualifiers, at 20-1. Ferrer is merely amazing, at 17-4. Combined singles and doubles, all surfaces, the two Spanish warriors are 39-9 (albeit not always with the same partners in doubles). But let's jettison the doubles and look at that combined 37-5 mark Nadal and Ferrer have created thus far in singles. How does it stack up against other current or recent one-two punch Davis Cup squads?
Keep in mind, though, that it only makes sense to count teams that have two players of Top 10—or better—caliber. Also, the team nature of Davis Cup shapes opportunity (a guy like Nadal playing for a powerhouse like Spain gets that many more chances to shine), and then there's a considerable difference in the ages of these players. So while there's room for all kinds of quibbling, there's no doubt that Nadal and Ferrer's .880 winning percentage is off-the-charts good.
Gael Monfils and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France are an anemic 12-4. Croatia's Marin Cilic and Ivan Ljubicic combined for 34-19. Andy Roddick and James Blake of the USA (who's probably done, but you never know) are a less than mind-blowing 51-23. Nikolay Davydenko and Mikhail Youzhny of Russia are 29-20.
The two squads that come closest to matching Spain's dynamic duo are, fittingly, Switzerland and Serbia. The Serbs Djokovic and Tipsarevic are about as close in age and experience to the Spanish pair as you can get. They're 48-20, but not quite as good as the Swiss duo. Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka are 44-16 (Federer by his lonesome, at 30-6 in singles, comes the closest of anyone to Nadal when it comes to individual winning percentage). And it's not all that close.
There certainly will be more wins (and losses) for Nadal and Ferrer, even if they both make stick to their decision to skip Davis Cup next year. So let's take a quick look at what they're up against, historically, sticking to the era of World Group play:
The USA's Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi were 45-15—perhaps not as strong as some might guess, given that Agassi has the same singles record as Federer, 30-6. Lleyton Hewitt and Patrick Rafter of Australia were 55-21, while Argentina's Guillermo Vilas and Jose-Luis Clerc were a whopping 65-24; Sweden's Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg were 71-31 and Carlos Moya and Al Corretja were 30-10. Germany's Boris Becker and Michael Stich were an outstanding 59-12—Becker himself was 39-3, which will be a difficult winning percentage even for Nadal to match as the years roll on and a few inevitable losses appear on his record.
Now let's get back for moment to that single blemish on Nadal's singles record. The loss was inflicted by Jiri Novak in Nadal's Davis Cup debut, on indoor carpet in the Czech Republic. At the time, Nadal was still months removed from his 18th birthday. But by the end of the tie Nadal was a national hero: He clinched victory for Spain with a straight-sets win over Radek Stepanek in the do-or-die fifth rubber. Prefiguring his mature competitive abilities, Nadal won the first two sets in tiebreakers and closed out Stepanek, 6-3, in the third. Spain would go on that year to win the championship for the second time (d. USA in the final). By then, Nadal was 18.
Here's a funny thing about that tie, and those numbers. At 19, Bjorn Borg was one year older than Nadal when he led Sweden to its first Davis Cup final win. And guess who the Swedes beat? Yep, Spain—on red clay, at the Real Club de Tenis de Barcelona.
Although Borg and his partner Ove Bengston were unable to secure the doubles point, Borg won both his singles over fair-to-middlin' clay-courters Manuel Orantes and Jose Higueras. Birger Andersson clinched for Sweden in the fifth rubber (d. Higueras). If you're wondering about Andersson, he was a singles player who lost seven of the 12 matches he played for Sweden—but he won the most important one of them all.
And that about wraps it up for me and another Davis Cup year.