The Spanish team has got ahead by 3-0 in their Davis Cup tie against Ukraine and has cruised into the World Group.

In the doubles match on the second day, Marc Lopez and Rafael Nadal secured a hard fought victory over the Ukrainian pair of Sergiy Stakhovsky and Denys Molchanov and gave Spain an unbeatable lead. Lopez-Nadal won the match by 6-2, 6-7(8), 6-3, 6-4.

It took the Spanish pair a little more than 3 hours to win the match.

Talking to the reporters at the end of the doubles match, Nadal said, “We were off to a good start, but, they fought back quite well in the second set. But, thankfully, we managed to get things under control again.”

“We played with positive approach in the 3^rd and the 4^th set and achieved the target that we had set for ourselves. We are in the World Group again and that’s really a proud feeling.”

Nadal had not been featuring in the Davis Cup doubles matches since the last 7 years and he was not supposed to feature this time around either. It was Tommy Robredo who was expected to be Marc Lopez’s partner. But, considering the importance of this doubles encounter, the Spanish skipper Alex Corretja asked Nadal to pair Lopez and his decision proved to be a right one.

Nadal has just come out of an exhausting US Open campaign, but, he has shown no signs of tiredness in this tie so far despite so much of travelling and Corretja hailed his commitment to the side.

The Spanish captain said, “Rafa has shown great commitment and that’s the sign of a true champion.”

Nadal will not make an appearance in the reverse singles matches which will be played tomorrow.