2 more SPs have come and gone, Nadal class. 6-4* to *6-6.

its been tense for a long while!

Disappointing, but not a bad effort:

R3:  Feliciano López & Rafael Nadal (ESP) UNR (55+0) defeated Jamie Murray & Neal Skupski CR 54 (23+31) by 7-6(3) 7-6(8)

I can't help feeling that home advantage made all the difference for Spain & if it's always going to be held there, why should anyone else bother ... ?

Listen, this was a great week of tennis. Yes, it had faults, but they tried something different and as a concept it worked. The players certainly saw this as a serious event and it will be fascinating to compare the ATP Cup with it...the Davis Cup is true teams, the best 18 countries. The ATP Cup is the top 24 countries #1 players plus hangers on. Not real teams and I suspect it will be an exho rather than a serious team event, without the emotion of buy of the DC.

GB did us proud, all of the team did really well. I would like to know what happened to Andy. If he was out of shape, as implied, then to be frank I think he let us down - he should have let Cam play instead. And knowing he was coming to Madrid, as a professional, he shouldnt have let himself go. Sorry to say that.

Of course, he may have just felt the weight of the last few months coming back to him belatedly and fair play, or picked up a new or worsened his condition, in which case I apologise. But I think we probably need to be told what has happened.

I was thinking that, but it's not as if they're invincible and 3 times they've lost a rubber to take it to the final doubles, and the margins have been very fine, plus selfishly, it's far better for us than the ATP Cup where matches will start around 3am, so I'd personally much rather it stayed in Spain than headed to somewhere like China. While obviously not as partizan, and they are long estsblished with history, you could still argue the likes of Barty gets an unfair advantage at the AO each year.

That said, I can't see Canada pushing them that close tomorrow. FAA is apparently ready, but I suspect they'll stick with Pospisal. I was thinking they could maybe throw FAA against Rafa and have Shapo against the #2 to give them a good shot of taking it to the deciding doubles, but then I forgot that Shapo passed FAA in the rankings after his Paris final, so it would be Shapo vs Nadal regardless.

I'll still tune in at 3pm, but suspect the doubles won't be needed for once.

Stircrazy wrote:

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Disappointing, but not a bad effort:

R3:  Feliciano López & Rafael Nadal (ESP) UNR (55+0) defeated Jamie Murray & Neal Skupski CR 54 (23+31) by 7-6(3) 7-6(8)

I can't help feeling that home advantage made all the difference for Spain & it's going to be the same next year & the year after that, so why bother ... ?

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Now overall unpersuaded as I am by the whole new concept, including a repeated home base for Spain, we can bother because we have been very close, as Argentina were in the QF vs Spain. 

It is not as if Spain have been near running away with things. These have been great contests. There's only been Rafa's singles as clear calls. Plus Spain can't count on him being fit at season end. And again, even with him, whatever this event may have lacked it certainly wasn't a big competitive element. 

So, yes home advantage for sure will have helped, but others had a decent chance and Spain have come through so far ( and not done yet ) with some challenging team circumstances. 

Well done team GB. So close ! 

-- Edited by indiana on Sunday 24th of November 2019 12:30:30 AM

Re Jon's points about Andy, while there may be questions to ask and we had a further strong singles player in Cam unselected, I am not really too bothered about the precise circumstances. He has so much positive credit in the bank.

And it ( maybe luckily ) hasn't cost us. He won his one singles match when needed. And our ultimate SF losses were to Rafa in the singles and in the doubles.