BARCELONA — The crisis in Spanish tennis deepened as their Davis Cup team, shorn of their best players, let slip a 2-0 lead in their tie with Russia to crash to a shock defeat in the second tier of the tournament on Sunday.
The five-time winners, now captained by Conchita Martinez, were hoping to win a place in the World Group Playoff next September and return to the game's elite but instead they went down in the best-of-five matches in Vladivostok.
Spain missed star names such as Rafa Nadal and David Ferrer but they were still clear favorites in the three-day Group 1 tie against a Russian team without a player in the ATP top 100.