Alex Corretja remembers the Davis Cup Finals in 2000: "Juan Carlos Ferrero was the hero and I was just as happy, I was not envious"

Spain won its first Davis Cup in 2000. On that occasion, Juan Carlos Ferrero was the hero of the team after winning two games in the final against Australia and scoring the deciding point against Lleyton Hewitt to make the score 3-1. One of his teammates, Alex Corretja, said he was not envious and was just as happy.

"Is tennis a team sport or an individual sport? Tennis, like life, is an individual sport, but it requires teamwork," Corretja began.

"I think that when you reach the top, you have to keep improving, always striving for perfection. People are surprised when I tell them I go to English classes, because I already speak it on TV, but I want to keep improving it," he said of his current work.

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"In that Davis Cup, I learned a lot not to be envious of my teammates. I learned from the tactics and I was not angry for not playing the first day, despite being the number one of the team. I had to think about the team and had to get three points between all. Juan Carlos Ferrero was the hero of the tie. Do you know how much that worried me? Zero. I have the same Davis Cup replica at home and I was just as happy. I was not envious and I respected my teammates, something that I think is missing today in society.

I was two matches away from being number one, I fell down and dropped to number 25. My goal, in that year 2000, was to return to the top-10, win the first Davis Cup for Spain and an Olympic medal. I changed everything, the racquet, the strings, my physical trainer..."

He recalled how the season started for him, leaving a very interesting message: "In the first Grand Slam of the year, in Australia, half a minute before going in to play against Lleyton Hewitt, I imagined a triple 6-0... and the match ended 6-0, 6-0 and 6-1. What we think, it has much more importance than we think.

Bad visualization leads to bad things... and good visualization can lead to good things. Months later, I played Hewitt again. The night before, I visualized myself beating him. And I beat him. That year I won five titles, we won the Davis Cup and, with Albert Costa, we got the medal, which was very unexpected".

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