BAECELONA: Spain won their fourth Davis Cup on Saturday when Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano Lopez took the doubles to give the team a 3-0 lead over the Czech Republic.

Spain also become the first country since Sweden in 1998 to retain the Davis Cup, after triumphing last year in Argentina. “It was an incredible moment to return as captain after winning here nine years ago,” said Spanish captain Albert Costa, who helped Spain to their first ever Davis Cup title in 2000, beating Australia at the same Palau Sant Jordi Arena in Barcelona. Spain won again in 2004, defeating the USA.

On Saturday, Verdasco and Lopez crushed an exhausted Radek Stepanek and Tomas Berdych, who had lost both Friday’s

opening singles, 7-6

(9-7), 7-5, 6-2, in what was the Czech pair’s first ever Davis Cup defeat in six matches. In Friday’s opening singles, world No 2 Rafael Nadalcruised past Berdych 7-5, 6-0, 6-2.

Then David Ferrer, ranked 18, came back from two sets down to beat Stepanek 1-6, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4, 8-6 in an epic match that lasted four hours and 17 minutes. “We won today, but yesterday we won two important points,” said Lopez. “I would like to highlight the match that David played. The final is his.”

Czech captain Jaroslav Navratil fielded Stepanek and Berdych, ranked 12th and 20th, for the crucial doubles match over his initial choice of Jan Hajek and Lukas Dlouhy, 102 and 465 respectively, in a desperate bid to snatch the cup from the defending champions.

The most decisive point in the match was in the first set, which came down to the first tiebreak of the tie. The Czechs earned a set point at 7-6 before Verdasco and Lopez went to win 9-7 in a long final rally. Lopez and Verdasco broke the Czechs in the 11th game of the second set after being 0-40 down after Berdych missed consecutive volleys at the net. An early break for the Spaniards in the final set left the Czechs with too much to do.

Spain beat Serbia 4-1, Germany 3-2 and Israel 4-1 en route to the final.

The Czechs won their only title as Czechoslovakia with Ivan Lendl in their squad in 1980.