Spain moved just one win away from a place in the Davis Cup final after Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer handed them a commanding 2-0 semi-final lead after the opening day of play in Madrid yesterday.

World number one Nadal survived a spirited early attack from American Sam Querrey, before beating the Davis Cup debutant 6-7 6-4 6-3 6-4 in the opening rubber.

The French Open and Wimbledon champion took three hours and 18 minutes to subdue the world number 39. He struggled to contain Querrey's booming serves and powerful forehand on the specially-built clay court in Las Ventas bullring.

Querrey said before the rubber he needed to be aggressive, and the gangly 1.98 metre (6ft 6in) 20-year-old burst out of the blocks with a series of big serves that unnerved both Nadal and VIP guests sitting behind him. The opening passage was strewn with errors but Querrey started to find his range with big ground strokes. In the deciding game it was the inexperienced American who seized the initiative to lead it 4-1 and he held his nerve while Nadal double faulted, to grasp the set in just under an hour.

The enthusiastic crowd in the 21,000-seater arena looked as stunned as Nadal when the now-rampant Querrey immediately broke the 22-year-old at the start of the second set.

However that would be the high point for Querrey and Nadal drew the the American into longer rallies which the claycourt master invariably dominated. At the first opportunity Nadal broke back.

As errors crept into Querrey's game and Nadal's shots began to fizz, Querrey cracked in the 10th game to hand Nadal the set.

It was a similar story in the third as Nadal soaked up Querrey's powerful strokes and chased down everything before hitting a series of sensational counter punches. Despite battling in the fourth, Querrey finally buckled in the ninth game.

Nadal said the match had been very difficult. "Never in my life have I so many service points been scored against me on clay," he said.

David Ferrer beat Andy Roddick in a five-set epic to give Spain a 2-0 lead after Friday's singles rubbers.

Ferrer showed tremendous fight to overcome a power-packed display from Andy Roddick with a 7-6 (7-5) 2-6 1-6 6-4 8-6 victory.

Roddick boomed down 23 aces in the match - more than double Ferrer's tally - but it was not enough to save the defending Davis Cup champions from another defeat.

Roddick, the world number eight, will be left to wonder quite how the match managed to slip away from him though after he bounced back from a narrow loss in the first set to sweep Ferrer aside in the next two.

However, Ferrer managed to turn the momentum away from his opponent and backed by an increasongly noisy home crowd of around 20,000 people, took the win.

Today, Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco take on Mike Bryan and Mardy Fish in the doubles.

Other result: Nalbandian bt Andreev 7-6 6-4 6-2; Del Potro bt Davydenko 6-1 6-4 6-2 (Argentina lead Russia 2-0).

Tokyo Open

Top seed Jelena Jankovic was bundled out of the Pan Pacific Open in a 2-6 7-5 7-5 defeat by Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova in yesterday's quarter-finals. The loss ended the Serb's hopes of recapturing the world number one ranking from Serena Williams this week.

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