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  • Can Del Potro rise to the occasion in crunch rubber

    9/19/08 11:33 AM | Johan Lindahl
    - It's a rubber which could sway the direction of this tie. With both sides having such strong squads all 5 rubbers look fairly evenly poised but if one team goes into day two 2-0 up there's likely to be no coming back.

    If the home crowd fails to rouse David Nalbandian to the peak of his powers against Igor Andreev, Argentina could go into this one 1-0 down. It'd be a lot of pressure for Juan Martin Del Potro playing in just his 4th live rubber against seasoned veteran Nikolay Davydenko who won this title against Argentina in Moscow two years ago.

    Davydenko won 7-6, 6-1 when they met in Paris last November but this season Del Potro has gone from greenhorn to world no 13 with his staggering run of 24 straight wins through the summer. Hard courts are his favourite but he still picked up 2 titles on the dirt, making up for a disappointing showing at the French.

    Davydenko remains in the top 10 at world no 6 but how long he will stay there remains to be seen. The Russian dazzled in Miami but failed to repeat either of his 2 slam semi-final runs from 2007 losing to surprise package Gilles Muller in New York.

    Davydenko has a 14-8 win-loss record in Davis Cup. He was surprisingly left out of the singles rubbers during last year's final against Russia, a decision which backfired on the Russian coach. His role this season has had a considerable slice of luck with Novak Djokovic and then Tomas Berdych both retiring during crucial rubbers which could have swung a 3-2 scoreline the other way.

    Prediction: Juan Martin Del Potro to claim a tight 4 setter.

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