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They won Davis Cup, World Cup and Wimbledon, and now they took over Day 5 of the U.S. Open.
The Spanish Armada—Tommy Robredo, David Ferrer, Feliciano Lopez, Fernando Verdasco, Daniel Gimeno-Traver, Nicolas Almagro and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez—attacked the outside courts Friday, while their brave leader, Rafael Nadal, played on Arthur Ashe Stadium in the night session.
There’s so much top talent in Spain that even John McEnroe is asking for their advice. At a Dunlop pre-U.S. Open party last Saturday (it was co-hosted by TENNIS.com), McEnroe, the emcee, told Fernando Verdasco on stage that he was starting a tennis academy and wanted to know how the Spanish have developed so many top players. Verdasco’s long, heavily accented response basically summed up to luck. “So I guess we’re screwed,” McEnroe said, to laughs from the crowd.
The Spanish have figured it out at least for the current generation. The only Spaniard who lost Friday was Garcia-Lopez, and that was to countryman Almagro. But there’s just one problem with so many Spaniards advancing. Aside from Davis Cup, which Spain has won four of the past 10 years, tennis isn’t a team sport. As in the case of Almagro and Garcia-Lopez in the second round, the men who make up the Armada will soon have to start battling their brothers: Nadal, Lopez, Ferrer, Gimeno-Traver and Verdasco are all in the same quarter. “In the fourth, maybe I will play with Ferrer, and then after in the quarters, is Nadal or maybe Feliciano,” Verdasco told me after his match Friday. “For us is pretty normal. We are lucky that many of these Spanish players are winning matches normally. We are used to it, to play against each other. Of course, we prefer to play against another country player.”
I’m sure John McEnroe’s brother, Patrick, general manager of USTA Player Development, would love for American players to have such a problem.
From Tennis.com
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