Ferrero injury caps grim day for Spain

Clifford Coonan

Spain ended a grim day in the World Team Cup men's tennis tournament on Monday at the bottom of their group after rising star Juan Carlos Ferrero said he could miss the French Open.

Alex Corretja gave Spain a flying start to the Cup when he hit back to beat Australia's Lleyton Hewitt 3-6 6-2 6-3.

However the win was overshadowed by a groin injury which forced Ferrero out of Duesseldorf and threatens his place in the Paris grand slam tournament starting next Monday.

Ferrero told a news conference that if the French Open was starting today he would not be able to play.

"I must get at least 80 percent better. It hurts to walk let alone play," he said.

Corretja's strong backline play and mental toughness in an absorbing game against sixth-seed Hewitt went some way toward soothing Spanish woes early on.

After losing the first set, the Spaniard came out fighting in the second and was soon 5-1 up with a combination of strong positional play and numerous pinpoint volleys.

He secured the second set after a glancing shot across the court at the end of a long rally put him 30-0 up, an ace made it 40-0 and wrapping the game up was a formality.

Corretja, having held his nerve in the third set to clinch the match, said: "I wanted to feel like I wanted to win. I'm just hoping to play well here and win as many matches as I can and see what happens in Paris," said Corretja, who was runner-up in the 1998 French Open.

MORE BAD NEWS
But there was more bad news for Spain when Australia's Pat Rafter swept away Ferrero's replacement Juan Balcells 6-3 6-2.

This was compounded later on when Rafter was back in action with Hewitt facing Balcells and Corretja in an enthralling doubles encounter.

Rafter and Hewitt won the first set 6-4 but the Spaniards stormed back to win the second set 6-0 and give them a faint hope.

The Australians combined well in the third to win 6-3 to go top of the tournament table on two points and leave Spain last.

Australia were just ahead of hosts Germany, also on two points but having won one set fewer.

Germany opened strongly when Tommy Haas came back through two tie-breaks to beat Sweden's Magnus Norman 6-7 7-6 6-4.

Haas was the crowd favourite going into his match against Norman but the home spectators were clearly disappointed when Haas failed to build on his dominance in the first set and lost in a tie-break.

The Swede kept the pressure on in the second set and went 4-0 up before Haas staged a remarkable comeback, although both players struggled to hold serve.

Haas gradually took control to force another tie-break and this time it was the German who won before moving on top of his opponent in the decisive set.

Haas notched up another point for Germany later with David Prinosil when they beat Sweden's Jonas Bjorkman and Nicklas Kulti 6-4 6-3 in the doubles competition.

Sweden's sole point against Germany came when Thomas Enqvist beat Germany's other top player Nicolas Kiefer 6-2 6-3.