Spain gets its salad bowl

After two boring and low-key dead rubbers, Spain was declared the winners of the Davis Cup today in Barcelona. Rafa was up first and he was in super-grumpy mode – grabbing his back and making faces at missed shots. He did enough, however, to beat Jan Hajak 6-3, 6-4. Next up, Ferrer took on doubles specialist Lukas Dlouhy and won 6-4, 6-2. Spain sweeps the final winning 5-0 over the Czech Republic. The are the first repeat winners

6 Dec 2009 | 118 Comments

Smells like team spirit

Well, it was another odd but fun one today. Got up early for the tour of Palau Sant Jordi that came with my package. After picking up a group at another hotel, we meet up with more groups at the stadium. The tour is in Spanish (of course), so I don’t understand a thing, but I’m still very glad I went.

We went into the stadium via the players’ entrance – not glamorous at all. In fact, it looked

5 Dec 2009 | 32 Comments

Spain repeats as Davis Cup champs

It took Feli and Nando just 3 sets to clinch the Davis Cup for Spain. It’s an impressive win given Berdych and Stepanek’s DC record. It was another emotional affair today – that mood was helped by a pretty tight score until the third set when Spain started to roll. Match score: 7-6(7), 7-5, 6-2. Tie score: Spain 3, the Czech Republic 0. Spain wins it’s forth Davis Cup. The first win was in 2000. It too

5 Dec 2009 | 50 Comments

Eeeeee!

I really don’t know how to describe my tennis day, so I’ll start with the super boring non-tennis stuff and hope I figure out a way.

I slept a blissful 9 hours. Got up, called about the DC tickets and the guy said there would be a lady in the lobby in an hour. So, I ate a huge breakfast and then sat down for a minute…and fell asleep again. D’oh! Went downstairs…no lady. Called, guy said

4 Dec 2009 | 56 Comments

Barcelona, Day One

For those of you who don’t want to waddle through the long version, here’s a short sum-up:

Last minute flight change; flight delayed; connection made; VBers on the plane; bus is a no-show; hotel is okay; hotel knows nothing about DC tickets; @AnaTennisGirl rocks; strolling on La Rambla; GRAPES; Xisca; rampaging geese; poopers.

I wasn’t going to blog non-tennis days, but there’s a few tangentially tennis related items here, so…

Got a call 3 hours before I was going to

3 Dec 2009 | 29 Comments

2010 Barcelona Open

According to this article, Rafa has confirmed his intention to play the 2010 Barcelona Open.

10 Nov 2009 | 8 Comments

More vids of the trophy ceremony

Posted by ib3.

Posted by meriko100.

23 Oct 2009 | 11 Comments

Video of the trophy presentation

rtve.es has a bit of video of the trophy presentation and playing tennis with the tots.

Also, here’s ib3’s coverage posted by luneworld:

And EFE has extremely similar (exactly?) coverage:

Posted by Patxy270180.

22 Oct 2009 | 9 Comments

My, what a big trophy you have…

Rafa was given a full-sized replica of the Conde de Goda trophy by the Barcelona Tennis club. He’s the only player to have received this honor. It’s the club Rafa calls his own and he was won the title 5 times.

22 Oct 2009 | 20 Comments

Now that’s a nifty trophy

On Oct. 22nd, Rafa will receive a full-sized replica of the Trofeo Conde de Godo – the huge trophy given out for the Barcelona tournament. He’s being bestowed this honor because he’s the only player in the history of the tournament to win it five times. (Source/Google Translation)

No word on how he’s going to fit that huge sucker into his trophy case…

20 Oct 2009 | 14 Comments