Argentina celebrates as Del Potro and Delbonis book amazing comeback Davis Cup win

The Argentinean tennis fairytale has been completed on Sunday in a packed Arena Zagreb when Juan Martin del Potro and Federico Delbonis accomplished a seemingly-impossible task and took the remaining two points from Croatians Marin Cilic and Ivo Karlovic to bring the prestigious Davis Cup title to their country.

It was Del Potro who made the happy ending possible, and he did it in style with his back pressed hard against the wall in a blockbuster match against Croatian No. 1 Marin Cilic. The leader of this Argentinean generation of players was down two sets and couldn't match the power of Cilic's game for the full two hours.

But things began to change when Del Potro started to take more risks in his shots, especially on his powerful forehand. He took the third set with a break of serve in the 12th game, and did almost the same thing in the fourth set, when Cilic was serving to stay in that set at 4-5 in favor of Del Potro.

Cilic managed to get a better start in the deciding set and broke Del Potro's serve in the first game, but he couldn't hold on to his lead for long, losing his serve in the next game.

"I thought that I was a better player overall, even in the sets that I lost. I made a few mistakes after I broke him at the beginning of the fifth set and when I lost my serve I think this is the moment that I lost the match. I am very disappointed," Cilic said after the defeat. Cilic suffered his third defeat of the last four matches that went to five sets, and he was up two sets in all three of them.

Del Potro put forward a heroic effort. For the first time in his career, he managed to come back from 0-2 down. He was not even slowed down by a broken little finger on his left hand (that he uses for his double-handed backhand).

"It happened during the fifth set when I was trying to catch one ball. I did it wrong but I don't care for that if we win the Davis Cup," Del Potro said at the media conference after his victory.

"This was the match of my life," Del Potro said of the 4-hour, 52-minute long battle which he eventually won 6-7 (4), 2-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-3.

His comeback inspired 26-year old lefthander Federico Delbonis to play the best match of his life, making Ivo Karlovic's thunderous serves look like they were in slow motion. He got his racket on almost everything his opponent sent across the court.

He broke Karlovic's serve once in the first set, and once more in the second. He did it two times more in the third, so after just two hours and nine minutes he won the match 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 and become another hero for the 3,000 Argentinean fans came to support their team.

"I was the one on the court but I wasn't the only one who was playing that match. The whole team was playing with me," Delbonis said about his performance that 37-year old veteran from Zagreb couldn't match even with the help of his hometown crowd.

"I don't know what went wrong. This is a very hard loss to swallow," Karlovic said with tears in his eyes knowing that he had lost the chance to win the Davis Cup for his country.

Argentina takes the silver trophy 35 years after they played the first of the five finals, all but one of them away from home.

Team captain Daniel Orsanic, who has Croatian roots, said he was proud of the group of players he led to Davis Cup glory.

"I am honored that I could work with these players, with this group of professionals. Apart from being a world class player, Juan Martin showed that he has a heart of a lion. What he did was amazing. Federico Delbonis played the best match of his life. Guido Pella didn't get a chance to get on court but he was playing every point with his teammates, supporting them all the way, just like Leonardo Mayer did. We did it for Argentina," he said.

Argentina became the 15th nation to win the Davis Cup since 1900. Zagreb was set to host the party for the Croatian team, but Del Potro and Delbonis appear to have crashed it. Instead, it is party time for people in Buenos Aires, and all over Argentina. Endit