BUENOS AIRES, May 5 -- World No. 23 David Nalbandian appealed Thursday to his fellow Argentine tennis players that they show unity in the upcoming matches off the Davis Cup.
Argentina will meet Kazakhstan in the group quarterfinals of the Davis Cup on July 7-9 and Nalbandian told Xinhua in an interview that these matches "will be more difficult than what is seems on papers" as the Kazakhstan team poses several talents on their side.
"It is a young team and perhaps they are not well known players, but these players hold promise for the future and they really play well, so it is a team we need to watch carefully and we have to try to play our best possible," said the 29-year-old Argentine.
Nalbandian is just recovering from two surgeries in his crotch and an injury in his adductors, but expressed excitement ahead of the 2011 Davis Cup, in which the Argentine team hopes to reach the semifinals for the 7th time in the last 10 years.
He said that unity is a key if the Argentine team is to succeed in reaching the semifinals and appealed to team captain Modesto "Tito" Vasquez for getting more involved in order to ensure that unitiy prevails between the players.
"It is the job of the captain. With Tito I don't really talk about the topic, because we never really see him. Tito only shows up in the week of the Davis Cup," he said, but expressed hope that Argentina will present the country's best players to the matches against Kazakhstan.
Nalbandian recalled with particular nostalgia his best result in international tennis when he in the 2005 Masters Cup in Shanghai took home the grand slam title after a grueling nerve-wracking win in the final against the world's No. 1 at the time, the Swiss Roger Federer.
The Argentine was down two sets against Federer when he in the third set turned the game around to win three straight sets and by that effort won the tournament.
"This was without doubt one of the best moments, one of the best memories of my career and it is a tournament that I will never forget. In the final with Federer, and turning the match around, was just incredible and that it will always stay in my mind," he said.
He said China had impressed him on many levels, but "the magnitude" of the main Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai, had left a lasting impression on him.
"Shanghai is a spectacular city, with an old part and a totally new part where there is some really big buildings and infrastructure. The cultural customs are very different to ours, so that was one of the things that made the biggest impression on me," said Nalbandian, who described the Great Wall of China as "something incredible".