- published: 21 Sep 2010
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The Argentina Davis Cup team represents Argentina in Davis Cup tennis competition and is governed by the Asociación Argentina de Tenis. As of 2011, the team has competed in the World Group since 2002 and reached the finals four times (1981, 2006, 2008, 2011) without winning the Cup. Argentina are currently #2 on the Davis Cup ranking by the ITF.
Argentina's Davis Cup debut in 1921 started on the wrong foot with a walkover loss to Denmark in the first round. They played their first Davis Cup matches in 1923, losing 1–4 in the first round against Switzerland. After several years of toiling in the regional and preliminary rounds, led by Guillermo Vilas and José Luis Clerc, Argentina reached their first finals in 1981, losing to the United States. After avoiding relegation from the World Group the next year, Argentina reached the semifinals in 1983, losing in Stockholm against the Swedish team. In the subsequent years Argentina couldn't repeat that performance and was relegated to the Americas I Group in 1987 and would not return to the World Group until the 2002 Davis Cup, reaching the semifinals again in a loss to Russia that included a historical doubles match between Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Marat Safin against David Nalbandian and Lucas Arnold Ker that at 6 hours and 20 minutes is the longest doubles match in recorded history. Since 2002, Argentina has reached the finals on three occasions in 2006, 2008 and 2011 losing all three series.
Argentina i/ˌɑrdʒənˈtiːnə/, officially the Argentine Republic (Spanish: República Argentina [reˈpuβlika aɾxenˈtina]), is a country in South America, the continent's second largest by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth-largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations.
Argentina's continental area is between the Andes mountain range in the west and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. It borders Paraguay and Bolivia to the north, Brazil and Uruguay to the northeast, and Chile to the west and south. Argentine claims over Antarctica, as well as overlapping claims made by Chile and the United Kingdom, are suspended by the Antarctic Treaty of 1961. Argentina also claims the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas) and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which are administered by the United Kingdom as British Overseas Territories.
A recognised middle power, Argentina is Latin America's third-largest economy, with a "very high" rating on the Human development index. Within Latin America, Argentina has the fifth highest nominal GDP per capita and the highest in purchasing power terms. Analysts have argued that the country has a "foundation for future growth due to its market size, levels of foreign direct investment, and percentage of high-tech exports as share of total manufactured goods", and it is classed by investors as middle emerging economy. Argentina is a founding member of the United Nations, Mercosur, the Union of South American Nations, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the World Bank Group and the World Trade Organization, and is one of the G-15 and G-20 major economies.