After almost 30 hours of travel, Rafael Matos, Australian Open mixed doubles champion alongside Luisa Stefani at the weekend, arrived in Florianopolis to complete the team that is called up for the confrontation against China for the Davis Cup World Group I Playoffs, this Friday and Saturday, at Costao do Santinho.
“I arrived here in Florianopolis straight from Australia. I started preparing for the match against China, still trying to adapt to the time difference. The first few days aren’t easy, the 14 hour time difference weighs heavily, but I’m doing well, I managed to sleep the first few nights before, I’ve already done two good training sessions here with the whole team”, explained Matos, 27th in the world in the ranking of doubles. “The expectation is the best possible. Everyone is in a good moment and we are going to go into the match very confident. We have the support of the fans, ”he added.
With the team complete, captain Jaime Oncins is already starting to see progress in the team’s preparation. “I see that the players are already more adapted to clay, since they were playing on a hard court. Our focus right now is for Rafa (Matos) to get used to the time zone, but from today’s training we already saw that he will be ready for the confrontation”, said the captain.
In addition to Matos, Oncins has Thiago Monteiro, Felipe Meligeni, Matheus Pucinelli and Gustavo Heide at his disposal. Juniors Joao Schiessl and Joao Fonseca are training with the team.
The confrontation will have two singles games this Friday, with the start scheduled for 12h. On Saturday, a doubles match and two singles matches will be played, starting at 10:30 am. The games will be broadcast live by Sportv3 and tickets can still be purchased on the site ingressonacional.com.br.
