By Chip le Grand
27 November 2003

SPAIN’s Juan Carlos Ferrero couldn’t explain what had just happened.

One minute he’s playing off in the final of the US Open and winning a Masters event in Madrid; the end-of-year No.1 ranking in his grasp and the tennis world at his feet.

The next, on November 10 in Houston, he’s back in the locker room after losing within an hour to David Nalbandian; his dreams of finishing No.1 reduced to paella.

“It is the first match in the whole year that I play like this,” Ferrero said at the time.

“You never know when it is going to come.”
Things didn’t get any better. Two nights later he lost to Andre Agassi and two nights after that to Roger Federer.

A day out from the Davis Cup final, it is with baited breath that Spain awaits to find out which Ferrero will walk on to Rod Laver Arena to play Lleyton Hewitt.

Will it be the 22-year-old “mosquito” who became the buzz at Roland Garros before playing three near-perfect sets to deny Hewitt in their quarter-final in New York.

Or will it be the fast-fading Spaniard who dragged himself around Houston like someone in need of a long siesta?

Such was Ferrero’s dismal showing at the end-of-year Tennis Masters Cup – and a sinus condition that he is said to have developed somewhere between Texas, southern California and Tullamarine Airport – that the media armada docked in Melbourne is rife with speculation he won’t even play.

For Hewitt, such talk is nonsense. Hewitt has instant recall when it comes to losses and remembers every point of his game against Ferrero at the US Open in New York.

“It is a big call not to play your world No.3,” Hewitt said this week.

“That (their US Open quarter-final) was as well as I have seen Juan Carlos play and also against Andre Agassi the following day.

“He is a tough player and getting better each year. He’s getting more and more successful on other surfaces.”

There is a certain likeness between Hewitt and Ferrero. Only one year separates them and both were prodigies, with their fathers playing central and ongoing roles in their careers.

Both have achieved a major career goal: Hewitt winning Wimbledon and Ferrero the French Open.

But their attitudes to the Davis Cup reveal Hewitt and Ferrero as the same tennis beast.

Like Hewitt, Ferrero’s Davis Cup debut at 19 was a baptism of fire, one he more than survived by beating Russia’s Marat Safin and Yevgeny Kafelnikov.

Since, he has constructed an imposing 11-3 singles record for Spain. Both men already have their names engraved on the cup but Ferrero has done the one thing in Davis Cup that Hewitt has not; leading his country to victory in a final.

Alex Corretja is confident that Spain’s leading singles player will be chosen to take the court tomorrow.

Corretja has good reason to be confident as the Spanish players were told the final team before yesterday’s practice session.

“Ferrero has showed already that he is a tremendous player,” Corretja said. “He is going to have his chance to play; he is going to do it right and he is prepared to do it.

“He has been playing terrific tennis through the whole year and I think, on grass, he has proved to himself he can beat good players at Wimbledon and that is going to give him some confidence to play and win, no matter what.”

According to Spain’s Davis Cup captain Juan Avendano, Ferrero is aware of what winning a Davis Cup in Australia would mean.

In Houston, Ferrero complained that he couldn’t do much more to increase interest in tennis in Spain, which suffers from an overwhelming national obsession with soccer.

This weekend is his chance.

Where there were only a handful of Spanish media in Houston, there are 42 accredited in Melbourne.

“For him, the real challenge is to win the Davis Cup outside of Spain,” Avendano said.

“Especially in Australia, is something really big, big, big.”