Entering the third day of competition, the big question was who would play for Argentina.  On paper, it was going to be del Potro.  But del Potro had not only the misfortune of losing to Ferrer, he did so in five sets, unable to muster the energy in either the fourth or fifth set to take on the hardest working man in tennis.  For all of del Potro’s effort to come back in 2011, he’s still a work in progress.  del Potro has never been the fittest of men, but he’s often used his fight, his desire to win, to fuel himself to victories.

The other choice was to sub in David Nalbandian.  The Argentine team decided to rest Nalbandian the first day and use him in doubles.  Nalbandian would have been pretty fresh, but would he have the weapons to beat Nadal?

Were it 2005, maybe Nalbandian would have a solid shot at beating Nadal, but Nalbandian’s best days are long gone, and while he still plays decent ball, he’s not ready to beat Nadal on clay even at his best.  So, the choice seemed obvious.  Play del Potro.  He has the shots to hurt Nadal.  And that’s the choice that Argentina went with.  del Potro was going to have to fight through any lingering effects of the loss to Ferrer.

Argentina couldn’t have hoped for a better start than three breaks of Nadal’s serve in the opening set, but there was danger looming despite an ideal start from del Potro.

del Potro had been clubbing the ball, playing aggressive while Nadal was trying to get into the game, gain confidence to play. With del Potro trying to serve out the first set at 5-1, Nadal was starting to get break points and make an impact in del Potro’s serve.  Time and again, del Potro was able to fight off break points and finally held to take the first set, but Nadal being Nadal, he was finding ways to get into the match in the first set.  It’s rare that Nadal doesn’t start to work his way into the match by the first set.  Although he didn’t break, it was helpful to push del Potro.

The second set looked like it might go del Potro’s way again.  He opened with a break and a 40-0 lead on his serve.  However, Nadal was not about to give up, and managed to get all game points back and eventually secure the break.  Nadal points to this break as critical to getting back in the match.  Rafa got a late break in the second set and won it 64.  The third set was all Rafa as del Potro seemed to tire, unable to make his big shots, and lost the third set, 61.

The fourth set started with a break by Rafa, and it appeared to be going Spain’s way with del Potro had no more to give.  However, del Potro was able to break back.  Then, Rafa broke again.  But del Potro broke back, then held and broke.  del Potro was up 5-3, but Nadal broke, held, and broke to lead 6-5.  Again, it seemed like Spain wouldn’t be denied, but del Potro mustered another big break and broke to force a tiebreak.

Give credit to del Potro to keep fighting in that fourth set.  It’s tough that del Potro couldn’t hold serve in the fourth set.  It’s strange how breaks came sometimes come in bunches.  The tiebreak went completely Rafa’s way.  del Potro attacked on a big backhand on the first point, hit it long, to go down a mini-break.  Nadal held 2 more points in a row, then took 2 points off del Potro, then Nadal took the last two points with the last point being a forehand down-the-line winner.

The one positive for del Potro is that he kept reasonably even despite not serving that well and being broken quite a few times.  The key for del Potro in the upcoming year is being able to get more of those hard shots in.  Against Nadal, del Potro had to hit 4-5 hard shots in a row to try to win a point, so stout is the Nadal defense.  But this seems promising as a launching point into 2012.

Tennis now takes a break for about 4 weeks with matches starting again early on in January.

Final score 16, 64, 61, 76.

With this, Spain has won 3 titles in the last 4 years.  Next year, Rafa is expected to play a limited Davis Cup schedule, especially with the Olympics being played.