ITF

Rublev celebrates another victory ITF World Winter 2021 11 the role of pantomime villain. Following his team's commanding semi-final victory over Germany, Medvedev, who defeated Jan-Lennard Struff to secure the win, celebrated by waving his hands, stomping his foot on the ground and quietening the crowd. "After the match, if I celebrate, I like to do something fun," said Medvedev. "In our team, what is funny is that the Spanish coach of Karen [Khachanov] doesn't know a lot of Russian words, but he knows how to say, 'calm down'. "When we play cards, tennis or football and somebody wins, he is like, 'calm down, calm down'. When Cristiano [Ronaldo] played in Madrid, he was doing this celebration a lot of the time. That's why I decided to do it. I felt it was fun." His actions sparked boos and whistles from many inside the arena, although Medvedev was not quite done with goading the assembled crowd, which of course had a sizeable Spanish contingent. "This has been an amazing two weeks for us so far," he added. "Beating Spain was the highlight. Beating Spain in Madrid, for all of us in the locker room, we were so happy to beat the home favourites. People still don't understand how to make me lose." In a competition played across three European cities, RTF, once again led by Shamil Tarpischev, were based in the Spanish capital throughout and defeated Ecuador as well as Spain to top Group A and head into the knockout phase bursting with intent. RTF then dispatched Sweden, one of two best- performing runners-up to have advanced from the group stage, in the quarter- finals before Germany bore the brunt of the Russian juggernaut in the last four. Croatia, meanwhile, were based in Turin initially, with their route to the final seeing them overcome Australia and Hungary in Group D before accounting for quarter-final rivals and home favourites Italy in their own backyard. Following a flight to Madrid, Vedran Martic's outfit were in blistering form and brilliantly outmanoeuvred a Serbia team featuring world No. 1 and 20-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic to secure a place in the final – their third in five years. In three out of their five matches at this year's Finals, 2018 champions Croatia were indebted to Olympic gold medallists and this year's Wimbledon winners Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic, who once again proved themselves a fearsome doubles pairing. Given the prowess of Mektic and Pavic, had the final against RTF gone the distance the story may well have had a different DAVIS CUP FINALS " I'm happy to be part of it and bring the points we needed. It's never easy to come here at the end of the season but they are some of the best weeks of my career." - Daniil Medvedev (RTF) Gojo was a standout performer

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