MADRID, 31 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Australian Sydney will open this Saturday the new tennis year with the dispute of the third edition of the ATP Cup, the team competition that will be held until January 9 in which Russia will defend the title and in which Spain will try to shine despite returning to have the absence of Rafa Nadal.
Less than a month after the Russian team lifted the Davis Cup champion ‘Salad Bowl’ in Madrid to close the 2021 season, the 2022 will open the curtain as is customary in Australia where, in addition to this ATP Cup, they will be held the first tournaments of the year that will culminate in the first ‘Grand Slam’, the Australian Open.
At the male level it will do so with another competition for national teams, which will live its third year of existence and with other notable absences such as those of world number one, Novak Djokovic, who continues to cast doubts about his presence in the first ‘big’ due to the obligation of vaccination, or the Russian Andrey Rublev, which somewhat reduces his team’s options to reissue the title they achieved in 2021 by beating Italy.
The Italians were then in charge of leaving Spain out of repeating the 2020 final, when, with Nadal in their ranks, they fell to a Serbia with ‘Nole’, one of the firm drivers of this tournament that does attract the German Alexander Zverev , a firm opponent of the new Davis Cup, which he has renounced since his new format.
The Spanish team, who did not pass the group stage in their attempt to defend the ‘Salad Bowl’ in Madrid, will once again rely on Pablo Carreño and Roberto Bautista, with Alejandro Davidovich, Pedro Martínez and Albert Ramos as alternatives, to go further possible in a competition that increases its number of selections from 12 to 16, but maintains that only the first of each group will advance to the semifinals.
Spain will debut in New Year’s Eve against Chile, with the Asturian playing Alejandro Tabilo and the Spaniard Cristian Garín. Beating the Chileans seems key to consolidating the options in a Group A where Serbia is also present, with Filip Krajinovic and Dusan Lajovic as assets, and Norway, led by the powerful Casper Ruud.
Russia, which will have Daniil Medvedev, but neither Aslan Karatsev and Karen Kachanov, will defend the title against powerful teams like the Italian, with Matteo Berrettini and Janik Sinner, the German, with Alexander Zverev, Jan-Lennard Struff and a powerful double (Krawietz -Puetz), or the Canadian youth Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime.