The absence of Rafael Nadal appears to have failed to halt the momentum of the Spanish team who got off to a dream start at the ATP Cup in Sydney on Saturday.
The 2020 runners-up swept aside Chile 3-0 in their opening tie by dropping just one set in three matches played. Two-time US Open semi-finalist Pablo Carreno Busta started Spain’s campaign with a 6-4, 7-6(4) win over world No.139 Alejandro Tabilo who had an early 3-1 lead in the match before he bounced back. Then Roberto Batista Agut produced a clinical display to sweep aside Christian Garin, who is ranked two places higher than him at 17th, 6-0, 6-3.
“Today was a good start for me. I played very solid and I’m very happy to get the win,” Bautista Agut said afterwards. “I like the conditions and this court. Sydney is a great city, so it’s very good to start the year playing ATP Cup.”
33-year-old Agut won seven games in a row before Garin managed to get on the scoreboard. Throughout the match he won 67% of his first service points and 75% of his second. He also converted five out of his seven break point opportunities.
The doubles was a much closer encounter with Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Pedro Martínez ousting Tomás Barrios Vera and Alejandro Tabilo 7-6(3), 4-6, 10-7.
Spain will play Serbia, who are without world No.1 Novak Djokovic, and Norway later this week.
In Group C Argentina thrashed Georgia 3-0 in a tie which saw them drop only nine games in total. Federico Daelbonis, who has been ranked as high as 33rd in the world, eased his way past Aleksandre Metreveli 6-1, 6-2. Metreveli has never played in the main draw of an ATP Tour event in his career and is currently outside the world’s top 500.
Diego Schwartzman inflicted further pain on the Georgians by beating their best player, Nikoloz Basilashvili, 6-1, 6-2, in less than an hour. The world No.13 impressively won 80% of his first service points and broke his opponent five times in total.
“It was a good start for me. I know him because we are the same age, but we didn’t play [before]. It’s the first time, so I’m happy to beat him in this way. Obviously I’m thinking about myself and I think my start and Federico’s start for our team, it was perfect.” Schwartzman said during his on-court interview.
“The good thing is I’m not hitting harder than my opponents regularly. That’s why I think I came to the court thinking just to have a good serve game. I think the return was working very good.” He added.
In the doubles Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni eased past Saba Purtseladze and Zura Tkemaladze 6-1, 6-2.
Should they both win their Group, Spain and Argentina will clash in the semi-finals of the tournament.
