Spain, crushes Czech Republic in the Davis Cup Finals

Spain's matches against the Czech Republic, in the Davis Cup Finals, were less like a competition and more like a slaughter. Typically, when you get 5 Spanish players, together on slow clay courts, you're putting their opponents at a significant disadvantage but if most of those Spanish players happen to be in the top 20, you may as well sign their opponent's death warrants. The Czech Team lead by Tomas Berdych and Raddek Steppanek, simply didn't have the weapons needed to beat this strong of a team on their best surface.

The first match of the Davis Cup finals was between Nadal and Berdych and if you've been following tennis closely over the last month or two, you'll already know that Nadal, has been on a losing streak. Since his return back in August he hasn't been playing up to his 2008/ early 09 standard, so what better way to restore his confidence than by trouncing Berdych, a player known for his occasionally strong hard court performances. Well, that's exactly what he did on Friday. Berdych, was able to hold his ground for most of the first set but once Nadal, broke serve at 5-all, the match was over. Rafa, won 13 games in a row before Berdych finally managed to spare himself from the dreaded double bagel. Still, Rafa took this one with ease, 7-5, 6-0, 6-2.

In the second match of the finals, Spain, sent out David Ferrer and the Czech Republic used their second best player, Raddek Steppanek. This was a surprising move on Spain's behalf because Fernando Verdasco was available to play and he's ranked higher than Ferrer is. Well, Ferrer was able to win the match but it took him 5 long grueling, sets to do it. Stepanek, was absolutely brilliant and he dominated Ferrer, in the first two sets. Even though he desperately struggled throughout the beginning, David improved as as the match went on. He found his footing, early in the third set and eventually started breaking Steppanek's serve. After more than 3 hours both players were level at 2 sets all. Now, came the final set and with this being a make or break match for the Czech Republic, I'll tell you it was very intense. For the first 12 games of the final set neither player was able to break the other one's serve, but it was becoming apparent that Stepanek, was running out of steam. Finally at 6-all, David Ferrer, broke serve and was able to hold his own to win the marathon five setter and give Spain their second win in a row.

Next came the doubles match between Lopez/Verdasco and Berdych/Stepanek. Unlike Ferrer, it didn't take Lopez and Verdasco five sets to win. They were able to finish off Berdych & Stepanek in a relatively competitive 3 sets.

For the last two matches, I'll use two words to describe them..."Squash Match." Now, if you're not a WWE fanatic, you probably don't know what those words mean, so let me explain. In the Pro Wrestling world, they have a term which is used for describing a heavily one sided match, where one wrestler dominates the other one. This term is called a squash match. I think this term perfectly describes the Nadal vs Hajek and Ferrer vs Dlouhy matches. Nadal squashed Jan Hajek and Ferrer squashed Dlouhy to give Spain a shut out victory over the Czech Republic and also their second consecutive Davis Cup title. Not really sure why they had to play these last two matches, because they already had a 3-0 lead which guaranteed them the title but oh well.

Anyway congrats to Spain, for winning their second straight Davis Cup title. They're going to be serious contenders in the future because they've got all the right players on their team and when they're able to compete on clay they're just about unstoppable. I expect Spain, will go on to win many more Davis Cup titles, in the next few years.:)