OREANDA-NEWS. The nerve strain in the Davis Cup final against Croatia was crazy, such matches take a lot of energy, Shamil Tarpishchev, president of the Russian Tennis Federation (RTF) and captain of the national team, told Match TV.

"The nerve load is crazy. When I sit on the chair, I lose four kilos in such a match due to nerves. So here too. I need to weigh myself, find out how much I've lost here in a week,"- said Tarpischev.

Team Russia won the Davis Cup on Sunday for the third time, winning the trophy for the first time since 2006. The Russian tennis team defeated the Croatians in the final.

According to the head of the FTR, his biggest concern was how the Russians would enter the game, as the opponents had a head start of a week of training.

"And the courts here are peculiar. Madrid is 1,000 metres above sea level, the ball flies very fast, the rhythm of the game is completely different. It takes at least a week to get used to such courts. That was the hardest part, to get all our players in the same condition. It doesn't even matter which national team is ranked 200 and which one is 100, it's almost the same,"- said Tarpischev.

The Russian national team was in top form by the semifinals, he added. "The team was easy to manage when you know what your athlete can do. The tactical moments were already decided,"- he said.

In 2021, Russia became the fourth team in history to win the Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup (formerly the Fed Cup, the women's equivalent of the Davis Cup) in the same year. Previously, the USA, Australia and the Czech Republic managed to do so. The Russian national team was more successful than the others at the Olympics in Tokyo, winning gold and silver in the mixed event and silver in the men's singles.