“That (Alcaraz’s absence) is certainly good news for us. I saw his two semifinal sets with (Daniel) Medvedev and he was clearly not in a good mood. He also struggled in the press room, he didn’t perform well.” I’m not excited,” Navrátil said. “It’s certainly better for us, but the Spanish team has a good team so they still have a good line-up. Wednesday’s game against them will probably be decisive,” Navrátil added.

The Spaniard can count on world No. 21 Alejandro Davidovich, Roberto Bautista (42), Alberto Ramos (88) and doubles player Marcel Granollers. They will also be able to rely on the home environment.

“When we played in Barcelona in 2009, the crowd was quite sporty. Not Serbia or Argentina. The crowd will cheer for the home team, but the kids are used to it. Practically we haven’t played in a home environment for a long time. five years,” Navrátil said. “Beating Spain might be the key to progress, because if (Novak) Djokovic starts on Saturday, it will be the most difficult match. And if we consider that we lost to Spain, we beat Korea and then Serbia finishes, it would be perfect. very difficult,” explained the Davis Cup captain.

Jiří Lehečka, the twenty-ninth player in the world, will be the Czech number one in Valencia, Jakub Menšík and doubles specialist Adam Pavlásek traveling with him. Tomáš Macháč, who advanced to the final in Cassis, France, will join the team.

“I feel fine. After the US Open, I took a few days off. I relaxed physically and mentally. After that, I went to Prostějov, where we had a very nutritious training block. We trained a lot. We also prepared physically for that. being there, they were in the best mood and didn’t lack in any aspect,” said Lehečka.

Eighteen-year-old Menšík, who attracted attention by advancing to the 3rd round of the US Open, will also be on hand. “It’s been beautiful in America. I’ve probably had one of the biggest successes in my career so far. I’m very happy because I did well, a year of hard work paid off and I got good results. I proved to myself that I being able to be with the players to play in the top 100, if not beat them. The fact that I am in good playing condition now can also be useful for the Davis Cup, so that I can help the team as much as possible,” said Menšík.

Navrátil also wants to use the form of talented players. Czech tennis players will have their first training session on Sunday. “I don’t think Cuba will confuse me. I’m very happy with the result, he beat great players there. We’ll see. The first man is clear and I’ll make a decision as I see it in the next three days. If everyone is healthy, I would like before Saturday to let Tomáš Macháč play once and Kuba Menšík once in the match. We’ll see according to the opponents. Spain is now a little weak and we want to do our best to be successful in this first match. Everything will depend to him,” Navrátil added.

The Czechs managed to reach the final tournament after two years, after a 3:1 win over Portugal in the February qualifiers. In the competition, they will look to improve on last year’s results, when they were not good enough against Great Britain and France in the group in Innsbruck. In 2012 and 2013, they dominated the Davis Cup in the previous format.