Talisman Nadal to sit out Davis Cup in 2012

The Spaniards secured their fifth title and a third in four years by beating Argentina on Sunday, Nadal winning the decisive point in a thrilling match against Juan Martin del Potro on the clay at Seville’s Olympic Stadium.

The 25-year-old Mallorcan has repeatedly complained about what he sees as an overloaded ATP World Tour calendar and told a news conference the added burden of competing in the 2012 Olympics in London, where he will bid for a second consecutive singles gold, meant Davis Cup participation was impossible.

Costa, a former French Open singles champion who has led Spain to two titles in his three-year stint at the helm, said he would take a week off to think about his future.

With talisman Nadal, who has won 20 of his 21 Davis Cup singles rubbers, stepping aside, Spain are still likely to be able to count on world No 5 David Ferrer and doubles pair Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco in 2012.

They also have a number of experienced players waiting in the wings including 10th-ranked Nicolas Almagro, who won three Tour singles titles this year, and No 27 Marcel Granollers, who won two.

Adding to the uncertainty, however, is the poor form of Lopez and Verdasco, who have been the weak link in Spain’s recent David Cup outings. The pair suffered a drubbing at the hands of French duo Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Michael Llodra in the semi-finals before being trounced by Argentina’s David Nalbandian and Eduardo Schwank in the final. “It seems clear that in the doubles we are going to have to experiment with another pair,” wrote Manolo Santana, a Spanish former French Open, Wimbledon and US Open champion, in yesterday’s El Mundo newspaper.

Emilio Sanchez-Vicario, who captained Spain to victory over Argentina in the 2008 final in Mar del Plata, said Spain needed new faces and an injection of fresh energy.

Bringing the 26-year-old Almagro and Granollers, 25, into the side would keep Spain competitive for the next few years, he wrote in El Mundo. “It’s clear that the Tour has changed and players reach the top later in their careers,” wrote Sanchez-Vicario, who runs a tennis academy in Barcelona and is the brother of four-times grand slam singles champion Arantxa Sanchez. “This also allows them to stay around for longer which means this current team has a longer shelf life,” he added.

Looking to the future, Sanchez-Vicario said the generation of Spanish players born around 1988, including 65th-ranked Albert Ramos and No 89 Pere Riba, both 23, was not terribly promising. He said Spain had failed to produce any decent talent among players born in the three years after 1988.

“By contrast, the 1993 generation looks very good,” Sanchez-Vicario said, picking out the 19-year-old Javi Marti as one to watch.