Nadal to play the Davis Cup against Sergiy Stakhovsky in Madrid!

After an incredible North American swing where the King of clay won Montreal, Cincinnati and the US Open back to back, Rafa will immediately take on Ukraine in the Davis Cup tie.

Nadal has arrived on Wednesday morning in Madrid to do some training, adapt to the condition and be ready for the match against Sergiy Stakhovsky. Even if the Ukrainian is quite low in the rankings ( no. world no.92) he is a rather dangerous player that can pull out incredible victories (beating Federer in Wimbledon is quite exceptional). Sergiy has also recently won a challenger in Kazan without conceding a single set. This will be the first match between Rafa and Sergiy.

Rafa: I hope to be competitive

“When I have been asked and have been free of injury I have always turned out to try to help the team win points and secure victories

I have been playing at the maximum intensity for practically a whole month and obviously that has a draining effect,

But I am ready for tomorrow and it’s just going to require another little bit of effort. I hope to be competitive even though I have spent very few hours on the court.” Said Nadal.

Rafa’s record in Davis Cup

Rafa has another incredible record in the Davis Cup to have won 20 matches out of 21 and a perfect 16 out 16 on clay.

Verdasco is the second single

The other selected player was world no. 33 Fernando Verdasco that will take on world no. 40 Alexandr Dolgopolov in the opening single. Head to head is 2-0 for Fernando.