AFTER losing on day one to Canada, Argentina surged into the 2024 Davis Cup Final 8 in Malaga after back-to-back wins the past two days. The South American nation went down to Canada on day one, but fortunately managed to win the doubles on that day which kept them alive. They then knocked off host nation Great Britain 2-1 and then destroyed Finland 3-0 to guarantee a spot in the knockout stages.

Argentina boasted Top 40 players Tomas Etcheverry and Francisco Cerundolo against an understrength Finland lineup of Eero Vasa and Otto Virtanen who were yet to win a singles match. Unfortunately for the European nation, that would continue despite some fierce resistance as Argentina won both singles match to kick off proceedings.

To the world number 703rd’s credit. Vasa put up a strong fight against Etcheverry first-up, but ultimately the experience and class of the Argentinian proved too much and he won 7-6 6-3 in a hard-fought performance. It was his first second singles win of the tournament, having defeated Daniel Evans in the previous match.

“The best thing for me is to represent my country,” Etcheverry said. “The Davis Cup is a tournament I always dreamed about as a child. It was so important to get the first point. I was playing a player who was low in the rankings and I had to win, so it was difficult.”

That victory was backed up by Cerundolo’s triumph over Virtanen in the second singles. After Virtanen – who produced an impressive 4-2 record at last year’s Davis Cup helping guide Finland to a shock semi-finals appearance – won the first set in a tiebreaker, Cerundolo put the foot down and only dropped one more game for the match in a dominant 6-7 6-1 6-0 triumph.

Needing a clean sweep to ensure Great Britain could not overtake them in the group stage, Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni did their job in a come-from-behind win over Finnish pair Harri Heliovaara and Patrick Kaukovalta.

“We knew we had to win 3-0 and we are very happy as a team,” Gonzalez said. “We are so excited to be in Malaga. “We wanted to get there since the start of the year. “A lot of people came from Argentina to come and support us. We felt like we were at home.”

It will be the first time in five years that Argentina has made the last eight, with Argentina set to qualify with either Canada or Great Britain. The North Americans boast a 5-1 record this tournament after also whitewashing Finland, and Great Britain – largely tipped to qualify over Argentina – will now need to win 3-0 over the current group leaders in order to qualify and knock Canada out of the race.

Argentina is one of six nations to already qualify for the final eight, with Australia and Spain home in Group B. Those two countries will face off on the final day to see who tops the group, while France finished third after beating Czech Republic 2-1 overnight.

In Group C, United States officially topped the group with a 2-1 victory over Germany in a battle of the undefeated sides. Both will advance through to Malaga, with the winless nations of Chile and Slovakia to play tonight.

Meanwhile in Group A, it is the most alive a Group has been, with the possibility of three sides remaining on one win and two losses, as well as four matches won and five matches lost if Italy defeats Netherlands 2-1 tonight. If that happens, the tie will go down to amount of sets won and then games won to decide the team to advance.