Spain Has Advantage After Doubles Sweep

Alex Corretja and Juan Balcells on Saturday put Spain one victory away from its first Davis Cup title.

History is heavily on Spain’s side in the best-of-five competition after the 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Australians Sandon Stolle and Mark Woodforde before a sellout crowd of 14,000.

In the last 22 Davis Cup finals, the team that won the doubles has claimed the 101-year-old trophy. The last time it didn’t happen was in 1977 when Italy took the doubles but lost to Australia.

Spain, always with the upper hand in the match and with the crowd cheering “Espana, Espana,” closed out the victory when Stolle netted a forehand return.

In Friday’s opening singles matches, Lleyton Hewitt defeated Albert Costa and and Juan Carlos Ferrero led Pat Rafter in the fourth set when the Australian retired because of cramps.

In today’s reverse singles, Ferrero is scheduled to play Hewitt before Costa takes on Rafter, but Spanish captain Javier Duarte is expected to substitute Corretja for either Costa or Ferrero, which he can do under a new rule instituted this year.

Spain has lost two Davis Cup finals--both to Australia in the 1960s on grass. The Spaniards also lost another Davis Cup tie to Australia almost 80 years ago.

Rafter said he expected to be ready today, although he skipped Saturday’s match and stayed in his hotel room to watch it on TV.

“I’m going to get some treatment and I look forward to coming out on Sunday,” Rafter said. “It’s not over yet . . . but still I don’t know why this happened.”

Balcells and Corretja, natives of Barcelona, received massive crowd support with the cheering, hissing and jeering often drowning out a corps of 10 drummers and cymbal players.

“It was a unique experience,” said Woodforde, who is retiring and played his final match. “I felt like a caged animal. The crowd was very disgraceful, so unsportsmanlike. If they were playing in Australia, it wouldn’t be like that.”

Australian captain John Newcombe, who said Spain “deserved to win, they played too good . . . it was a bloody good win,” kept getting hit with crowd questions from Australian reporters.

“I’ve never seen this sort of match in all my life with 14,000 people booing. I’ve never seen this before,” he said, saying Australia should be guaranteed 50% of the seats if it plays again in Spain.

“They have showed their unsporting behavior in front of the world. . . . It’s not in the spirit of what the Davis Cup is all about.”

Durate has hinted he may play Ferrero against Hewitt and save Corretja for Rafter.

“It will be one of the best comebacks ever if we win tomorrow,” Newcombe said.