Interlude: Davis Cup Nominations

With both David and Delpo out of the equation, Argentina's captain Tito Vázquez has announced his nominations for the Davis Cup first-round tie against Sweden. Juan Monaco will lead the team as the new #1 singles player. He will be accompanied by Leonardo Mayer, Horacio Zeballos and Eduardo Schwank.
Sweden's team will be led by Robin Söderling. With Andreas Vinciguerra and doubles experts Simon Aspelin and Robert Lindstedt completing the Swedish squad.

If Argentina lose this first-round tie, they run the risk of losing their place in the World Group, i.e. the group of nations competing in Davis Cup. In this case, Argentina would have to qualify for next year's competition at the World Group playoffs (September 17-19) against one of the top teams from the Zonal Groups.
(I initially thought they would lose an entire year, having to qualify again but that's not the case, as a look at the Davis Cup rulebook revealed.)

I'll keep track of what happens in Stockholm. I'm sure David will, too...

(Sources: Telam, Davis Cup official site)


Update (24/02)
Here are some new quotes from David, who appeared on the show "Despertate" on TyC Sports to talk about the upcoming Davis Cup tie and the current state of his recovery...

It's a shame that I can't play Davis Cup. I would've really liked to play and I already missed out [on playing Davis Cup] last year.

Monaco, Mayer, Zeballos and Schwank are the best players we have at the moment. We'll have to see how the guys will adapt [to playing on hard court] after playing at Acapulco this week. For Pico, making this adjustment will perhaps be the most difficult. Zeballos, playing serve and volley, will have it easier and the same goes for Leo Mayer, who has been playing on hard court of late.

Basically no one [on the Argentine team] can really expect to beat Söderling. We'll have to go with a strategy that's about trying to win the other two singles and the doubles.

If we lose this tie, we'll have to play [the World Group] playoffs, something that hasn't happened since 2000, I believe. And nobody thinks about it now that for years the worst we've done has been reaching the quarter final.

It becomes normal that you have to win, normal to reach semis or the final, year after year. But those are also things that have to achieved. After Vilas, Argentina was in American Zonal Group most of the time before we managed to make it [to the World Group] again.

Talking about his latest injury and the current recovery, David admits he still has to adapt "better to playing competitive tennis" because...

Otherwise, I wouldn't have suffered two tears within a month and a half. Everyone is aware of the risk during every match, every athlete knows the pain and how far they can push themselves. It's your subconscious and your desires that often betray you.

Today I'll try [training] for 20 minutes to see how my body will react to it and also to see what progress I'm making during these two days of tennis in order to go back to practically normal training next week and then trying to play Indian Wells.
Had it [the injury] happened anywhere else I would've done what was necessary [to keep the injury from getting worse] because you say to yourself, I want to play the coming week and I'll play that tournament next. The thing is that only when my body cooled down [after the match] we realised that it was something 'serious'.
If at that moment [during the match] they would've told me to stop now or else I wouldn't be playing Davis Cup, then I would've done that, I would've stopped. But nobody has a crystal ball to know these things.

Here's another one I just found, about how David sees his comeback so far...

I was very happy with my level of playing. I still lack match practice and I have to improve physically. But fortunately, I haven't lost the timing [on my shots] and I was able to respond well in the decisive moments, especially in the second match.

(Sources: Infobae.com & Clarin, thanks, Anna; and 26noticias.com.ar)