Madrid
35 years ago I broadcast my first Davis Cup in Essen (Germany) by radio Atalaya and I reported it for EL UNIVERSO. I had not turned 18 yet, but together with Álex Russel Miranda we fulfilled the assigned mission. Andrés Gómez and Raúl Viver played for Ecuador; the captain was Ricardo Ycaza. For Germany, neither more nor less than Boris Becker and the also formidable Eric Jelen. We fell without mitigating in a very fast synthetic court that benefited the locals.
Mario Canessa Oneto and Miguel Martín Ycaza (+) broadcast on Caravan and they were witnesses of all the anecdotes of that unforgettable series.
Three and a half decades later, I have to travel to Madrid on the same plane as Andrés, who now comes as the father of our number one racket, Emilio Gomez Estrada, and as a living legend of world tennis.
Now Raúl Viver is the Davis Cup captain and Luis Adrián Morejón (former national tennis player) is not only a successful businessman of international sporting events, but in the last fifteen years he has broadcast series for Atalaya throughout the world where Ecuador played.
On the Spanish side, the Catalan Sergi Bruguera was also a monster of world tennis and is now its Davis Cup captain. He has the difficult task of repeating the title achieved in 2019, but now without the injured Rafael Nadal. For this he has a strong team with the young Alcaraz and Carreño Busta, which, however, does not compare with the super-powerful Russia of Daniil Medvedev (number two in the ATP ranking) and Andrey Rublev (five).
Friday and Saturday, at the Madrid Arena, starting at 04:00 (Ecuador time), we will report live, step by step, the cup incidents of our valuable tennis players against the Iberians and the Russians.
We are not favorites at all. It is a great truth. But … didn’t something similar happen to us with the UK at Wimbledon in 2000? All the chronicles we wrote for THE UNIVERSE at Wimbledon are there for posterity.
Ecuador is, along with Argentina, one of the most successful Latin American and Caribbean countries in Davis Cup. That is why we have not hesitated to get to Madrid!
Beyond the results, today we are in the elite or VIP group of international tennis. (OR)
Andrés Mendoza Paladines is director of radio Atalaya. Covers, in Madrid, the Davis Cup 2021 finals for EL UNIVERSO.
