Davis Cup R1 – Day 1 Review

David Nalbandian def. Florian Mayer 2-6 6-0 6-1 7-6(5)

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Usually there are two versions of David, the one that shows up for Davis Cup, and the regular tour version of David. At the start of the match, it was hard to distinguish between the two versions. David, now wearing the clothing of his new sponsor, Topper was pretty much wearing the Argentine flag on his shirt. But he didn’t appear to be as fired up as he usually is for Davis Cup. It’s a tough adjustment to make from hardcourt and clay, and David appeared to struggle with his movement on the clay on the early stages, as well as with his usual sloppy starts.

Both David and Mayer started slowly. David made several simple mistakes to go down a break of serve. Then he went up 0-30 on Mayer’s serve and had a chance to get it to 0-40 with a volley into the open court. He dumped it into the net, and Mayer went on to hold serve. As the first set went on, Mayer started to swing more freely, playing aggressively on the return of serve, then taking control of the point from there. The first set was soon over in a flash.

David served much better from the second set onwards, or at least every point seemed to start in his favour. Both on serve and on return. Once David went up a break, his game started to hit its peak. That game he played to get a second break was pretty much filled with perfectly constructed, accurate groundstrokes. Most of the time, he could pretty much place the ball wherever he wanted it to, and finish off points at the net. I guess it all started with better returning and serving. Somehow David has a knack of being able to sense whenever the right time is to come into the net, on all surfaces, even though the sneak in there must be a completely different move on clay which requires sliding compared to hardcourt for example.

The fourth set took a strange turn. After a slightly lacklustre performance in the second and third sets, Mayer started to utilize the change of paces more which made it far more difficult for David to control the points. The early part of the fourth set was probably the best part of the match, from a competitive point of view. Mayer worked up the crowd after breaking serve early, and continued to try to get them on their side. He played some good tennis for the majority of the fourth set, but in the crucial moment, in the tie-break, David played some great points including a defensive lob winner. David was quite dominant in the tie-break for the most part. He went up 4-0 and had 4 match points, before converting on his match point by hitting an awesome trademark backhand down-the-line winner.