Monday, December 3
Last updated at 10:30 pm EDT
Still catching up -- more tomorrow...
AMERICAN PRESS
Davis drought over for US - Bud Collins, Boston Globe
In 1966, a young California tennis player named Kathy Blake won the longest singles match ever played by a woman. She beat Mexican Elena Subirats in 62 games, 12-10, 6-8, 24-12, during a New York tournament.But apparently she was carrying more influential doubles genes, giving birth 12 years later to the guys - Bob and Mike Bryan - who would end the longest stretch of American misery in Davis Cup campaigning.
Sunday was Monica Seles' 34th birthday, and with it came news that would be a gift to tennis fans. She is considering a comeback....But by March, specifically at the major tournament hosted each year in Miami, Seles may be striking the tennis ball in real competition after what would then be nearly a five-year layoff... "I guess I kind of had two tennis careers," Seles said.
And now, perhaps a third. "I certainly would not ever be able to do a full schedule again, because of the foot," she said, "but I'm thinking about the Slams and about some of the better tournaments that lead into them.
"I won't decide for sure until the beginning of the year, and the Australian is certainly not possible. But Miami. Maybe."
Said James Blake, who won a taut, four-set singles match against Mikhail Youzhny on Friday: "This team is not just this year. This team is from Winston-Salem in 2001. From Robby [Ginepri] coming back from two sets to love down in Connecticut, from Mardy [Fish] winning a huge match in Bratislava to make sure we didn't get relegated."For U.S. Captain Patrick McEnroe, this was something that his more famous brother, John, never achieved as captain in 2000. Patrick McEnroe, asked if this was his best moment in tennis, demurred until Roddick jumped in and said, "Say yes."
Said McEnroe, laughing: "Yes, it is. It feels great."
...For U.S. Captain Patrick McEnroe, this was something that his more famous brother, John, never achieved as captain in 2000. Patrick McEnroe, asked if this was his best moment in tennis, demurred until Roddick jumped in and said, "Say yes." Said McEnroe, laughing: "Yes, it is. It feels great."
Arlen Kantarian, the chief executive officer of men’s professional tennis at the United States Tennis Association, called the Americans’ victory, their first in 12 years, a great springboard for American tennis.But he also readily conceded that this final was far from a national moment and even further from an international moment. It was televised on Versus, a cable channel with limited distribution. Staging it on the West Coast reduced its appeal to broadcasters in Europe, the Davis Cup’s present-day power base.
The atmosphere in Memorial Coliseum, which sold out each day, was terrific. But U.S.T.A. officials would gladly have put this first home final in 15 years in a bigger market. The problem was venue availability. Because of the Cup’s format, they had slightly more than two months to find an arena that was not booked.
Kantarian wants a different approach. “Our players have talked about it, and we said, ‘Listen, let’s win it in this format, let’s win it their way and then we can discuss what we think can enable this event to translate globally,’ ” he said. “What they have here is something much bigger than what they are showcasing. It’s great in the stadium. In Portland, hopefully in Moscow, this is big, but I don’t think it’s hitting the radar screen in Paris or London or maybe even in New York.”
''You know, these guys will always have this,'' McEnroe said. ``We'll always have it. That's something that we take a lot of pride in. To get your name on that Cup, I think it's pretty darn special.''
For Blake, who spent two years at Harvard before joining the tour full-time, being a part of a winning Davis Cup team is particularly special -- Harvard student Dwight Filley Davis began the international team competition and donated the trophy in 1900. ''It's a great feeling,'' Blake said. ``I guess now I can actually say it -- [I'm] a Davis Cup champion. [It's] something that I never would have expected and definitely didn't plan for when I went to Harvard.''
...''I've just got a text message from Pete Sampras, who single-handedly won the Davis Cup for us in '95, to congratulate the team,'' said McEnroe, looking at his cellphone to read the message from his close friend. The Americans will have just about two months to revel in their status as Davis Cup champions before beginning defense of their title against host Austria from Feb. 8-10. ''I'm going to start looking at Austria and I'm still going to savor this weekend,'' McEnroe said. ``I'm going to savor this for the rest of my life.
``But it's a new year next year, a new challenge.''
''Patrick has a marvelous temperament for a leader,'' McEnroe the father said. ``He can be feisty, and he wants to win as much as anyone, but he knew how to build team spirit. He was able to cut strings from the past and create new camaraderie.''In 2000, John McEnroe was counting on Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, but could not get both of them to commit to each round. Consequently, John had to call on Chris Woodruff to bail out the U.S. in the 3-2 win in Zimbabwe. Sampras and Agassi helped beat the Czech Republic in California but neither played in the semifinal in Spain, which the U.S. lost 5-0, using the patchwork lineup of Todd Martin, Jan-Michael Gambill, Vince Spadea and Woodruff.
'John was frustrated as a coach in two ways: He wanted to run out on court, grab the racket and say, `Here's how you do it,' '' John the father said. ``He was also frustrated by his inability to get the top guys to play.''
McEnroe knows that for some players capturing the title might free them up to focus on other goals such as winning majors or chasing top-ranked Roger Federer, but he doesn't anticipate that happening with his current players, either."I think these guys love it so much and these are memories they'll always have (to keep them coming back)," he said. "It'll be tricky, but I think the guys will be there and I will do everything I can to get them there."
Bob Bryan, who with brother Mike improved to 13-1 in Davis Cup play, said he can't see not answering the Davis Cup call. "This has always been the most fun we've had in the sport," he said. "That's never going to change."
Team leader Roddick, reeking of beer and champagne right after the win, was equally emphatic. "I'm committed to this cause," said the 25-year-old Texan. "It feels great. Why wouldn't I want to experience it again?
"As you can see, we don't use many signals," Mike Bryan said. "(We've) just played so many matches that we flow together. I mean, you can say that we have ESP or whatever, but we don't. I basically know what (Bob's) thinking, what shot he's going to hit every point, and we move together on the court, which is just huge."The Bryans are the unknown soldiers of big-time tennis. They've won five Grand Slam titles, and they won 11 tournaments this year. They've anchored the U.S. Davis Cup team for five years. And nobody knows who they are.
Doubles is to tennis what curling is to the Olympics - a quirky event that most fans pay attention to about 10 minutes every few years.
The pay is decent, but you fly way under the radar. For the U.S., the Davis Cup is the Andy Roddick Show, also starring James Blake and captain Patrick McEnroe. The Bryans are the roadies ... until Saturday afternoon, when a lifetime of preparation paid off and they won a trophy the size of a Donald Trump wedding cake for their buddies.
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
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For four years running, I have used this space to trumpet tennis Yahweh, Roger Federer, as Sportsman of the Year. All he's done is win 11 of the last 16 major events, take more than 50 titles on every imaginable surface and forestall any debate as to the identity of tennis' greatest male player of all-time.Agile and fluid as he is on the court, Federer hasn't budged from the top spot in the rankings for nearly four years now, the longest streak at No. 1 in the Open Era. And if you're looking for a true "Sportsman," you won't do any better here either.
...So now I am encouraging you to look elsewhere. Surely there are more deserving candidates than Roger Federer. Let me count the ways: For one, Federer failed yet again in his Ahab-like quest to become the first man since Rod Laver to win the Grand Slam, i.e. take all four majors in the same calendar year... And he couldn't close the deal. No Slam? No Sportsman. It's that simple, pal... and during the U.S. Open, the venerable New York Post reported that Federer received an $800 haircut. Didn't John Edwards' presidential candidacy suffer a blow when reports surfaced that he shelled out $400 for a haircut?
...Who does that leave to take the award for 2007? Some quarterback who may have won a dozen games during his four-month season, or a college basketball team that caught fire in March. Whatever. Doesn't matter to me. Just not Roger Federer.
Anyone but that loser.
One of the cooler moments of the weekend came midway through the Blake-Youzhny match. Youzhny hit a serve into to the net and the poor ballkid wiped out so badly he knocked over a netpost. Kid was OK (put on a brave face anyway) but because of the interruption, they play a let. On his ensuing serve, Youzhny smokes an ace. He immediately runs over to the poor kid and gives him a high five....One of the weirder moment: 30 minutes or so after the clinching doubles match, as the American players sprayed each other with champagne, the Russians came back on the court and played pick-ups soccer.
...Quote of the week came (no surprise) from Dmitry Tursunov. Asked about the similarities between Russia and the U.S. Tursunov explained: "Um. We both owned Alaska at one point."
...Back to Ginepri. Before the competition, the American players signed a letter they presented to USTA executives, strongly requesting that the American wild card for the Australian Open be given to Ginepri. Be interesting to see if the USTA complies or holds a qualifying event among the younger prospects... This presupposes John Isner gets an automatic main draw entry.
...This is apropos of nothing but in random discussion of Davis Cup, the subject of Andre Agassi's infamous 1990 dead rubber forfeit came up. The Aussie whom Agassi was supposed to have played, said lividly: "I don't like him because the stuff he carries on with is needless." That player's name? Darren Cahill.
After his team swept Russia 3-0 to bust its 12-year-Davis Cup drought, U.S. captain Patrick McEnroe recalled a time in France five years ago in the semifinals when his top player, Andy Roddick, had lost two singles match on clay and felt like the world was collapsing on him."The next morning we were in the van and he said 'I'm sorry' and I said, 'What are you sorry about?' He put it on the line then and did it every time. He's done it for us and even though he's taken his shots from everyone, including me, with the losses he's had, he's put in everything he has into Davis Cup. He sets the tone for us."
..."Last year when I lost to Tursunov in Russia I was crying my eyes out, too," Roddick told FOXSports.com. "It hurts more to lose in Davis Cup because it's not all about you. It affects a lot more people. Davis Cup losses are the worst, but even when you are going through the process of losing, pouring you heart out and having your teammates say they are proud of you, this is always in the back if your mind, that you can win it someday and we finally did it. It's not real yet to me, but we did it and we are all just thrilled."
Tarpischev chose Mikhail Youzhny for the job and minced no words about why he shelved the No. 4 player in the world Friday. "I don't think that [Nikolay] Davydenko would have beaten Blake today," Tarpischev said. Youzhny played valiantly and nearly pushed Blake into the red zone of a fifth set, but even if Youzhny had managed to win, chances are he or a pinch-hitting Davydenko would have been inhaled by the ravenous Roddick on Sunday.Frankly, there was no good strategy against the U.S. team, short of cutting the power lines to Memorial Coliseum or arranging for a convenient case of food poisoning. Roddick and the Bryans saw to that with their intimidating records and reputations, and Blake cowboyed up and denied the Russians their already slim chances of extending the competition to a third day.
...U.S. captain Patrick McEnroe, normally the diplomat, ran over the last words of the familiar question Saturday with a response that showed a faint flicker of Irish temper. "I don't really concern myself with that too much," he said. "What it does sort of on a bigger level, you know, you hope it has some effect. But to be perfectly honest, that's sort of out of our control. I think we've done our part. I think the guys have done their part. I think the people see their passion and their commitment for playing for their country and playing for each other.
"And, to be honest, I feel like that's enough. I mean, that's enough. I think we're doing everything we can. We're putting on a great event. The guys are into it. If the rest of the world catches on, great."
Vic Seixas, Neale Fraser, Barry MacKay, Donald Dell, Stan Smith, Alex Metreveli, Tom Gorman, Tom Gullikson – these were just some of the names in attendance as Patrick McEnroe’s team brought the Cup back to the nation of its founder for the 32nd time... It is over fifty years now since Vic teamed with Tony Trabert for two of the greatest battles in Davis Cup history – finals of 1953 and ’54, first in Melbourne and then in Sydney when Australia was unveiling the kids who became known as the Terrible Twins – Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall... But, whatever the results, the crowds were huge – White City’s swaying bleechers in Sydney holding a Davis Cup record attendance of over 26,000 people – and the tennis was brilliant.It was interesting to hear what Seixas recalled about those finals because it dovetailed into what Andy Roddick had been saying about this one. Roddick made the point that the Davis Cup had been on the minds of Blake, the Bryans and himself all year and that they were mentally preparing for the battles ahead as the months went by. "We talked about it all the time when we met up in the locker room at tournaments," said Roddick.
A day earlier, Seixas had told me, "Tony and I really spent the whole year following Melbourne preparing for the next meeting with Australia. It was always at the back of our minds through all the tournaments we played."
Where exactly does the Davis Cup go after a night on the town? It goes home with Tara Murray. The New Jersey native’s official title is trophy manager for www.synergyevents.com, an Ocean, New Jersey-based marketing company, but the 20-something Murray serves as a virtual round-the-clock guardian/baby sitter/designated driver for the Davis Cup....Viewing the Cup up close is like taking a tour of tennis history as the names of every player and captain participating in Davis Cup finals appears on the Cup - except for the 2006 and 2007 finals. “They engrave the names on the silver panels with two years on each panel,” Murray explained. “So after this weekend’s final ends they’ll add the panel from the 2006 and 2007 finals.”
While the tie wasn't played in one of the country's biggest cities, the Portland effect was felt. Bob said, for example, that when he and Mike have won Slams, he normally gets "10, 12 text messages, 30 e-mails. And I had 65 new text messages this morning and hundreds of e-mails. So this touches a lot more people."While there were plenty of non-player-related or USTA folks in the stands over the weekend, there was no doubt that the first final played in the US since 1995 was packed full of regular tennis followers, as it should be. Imagine that, some of you actually left your social networking, Federer-obsessed chat rooms and watched some real, live tennis. Good on you. Bob Bryan is a pretty straight-up guy and said he "probably knew 500 people" in Saturday's crowd. Let me take an educated guess that at least 3,000 of the 12,000 folks who showed up in America's rainiest city were from out of town.
...The boys aren't always comfortable having their dad in the house, but it's really Wayne who gets more nervous. But as Bob said, pops sucked it up and sat about seven rows from the court on a day he'll carry with him forever. "He kind of surprised us," Bob said. "I think he just wanted to do it for himself, kind of get over the hump and see us win a big match. It's awesome that he was able to do it. I know my parents live and die with every match we play. When we're in Europe, they're up at 3:00 in the morning watching the matches. They have jet lag when we come home. They're calling us at 4:00 in the morning saying, 'You guys ready for breakfast?' They're so into it. For my dad to step up to his fears and sit there and die with every point was pretty phenomenal."
...The first word off the court is that the US players got together and requested that the USTA give its Aussie Open wild card to No. 132-ranked Robby Ginepri... Some other whisperings are that Zina Garrison will be back as Fed Cup captain, but with Mary Joe Fernandez alongside as a coach and with a guarantee for MJ that she'll take over in 2009.
There was a wild and much deserved celebration by the US team after the victory. The beer flowed, down the gullets of the players and supporters, and on to the shirts of the Bryans, Andy Roddick, James Blake and former teammates Mardy Fish and Robby Ginepri.Later when he was asked by a father of a young junior what advice he would give his son, the US No. 1 joked, "Don't ever smell like this."
..."This year I think it sort of looked like, hey, maybe we could play a decent country, and Czech Republic has a good team, but maybe not one of the top, top teams, away on clay," McEnroe said. "When we won that, I think we thought maybe things can break right for us. But to go to Sweden and to win away in the semis was big. I think we caught a little break when Argentina lost. They would have been obviously very tough on clay. But to win two matches away was big for us. I think the experience that these guys have had over the years was really key towards handling the away matches and also handling the emotion of the home matches really well."
...Roddick and his buddies were as loose as anyone has ever seen them in a tie. There's a lot of satisfaction after ending a long, tortuous journey, and as Roddick left the building, arm and arm with his new girlfriend, SI swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker. He was asked whether this was like winning tennis' version of the Super Bowl. "Yup, no doubt," he said, and went off to with his boys to the watering hole where, as Bob said, they will "take it out hard."
The US tended to throw together a de facto all-star team, and the chemistry was always volatile. Nobody owned those pre-McEnroe teams like Roddick owns the present one, partly because the top stars were rivals who preferred to operate unilaterally. That approach worked to a limited degree - you couldn't NOT win Davis Cups with the talent on hand. But there was little continuity, only nominal camaraderie, and when our talent declined it became manifest that the all-star approach was, simply, unworkable.So McEnroe set about building a team from the ground up, in an era when the US was no longer the 800-pound Davis Cup gorilla in Davis Cup room. He did it with the patience, attention to detail, and not-always-obvious toughness that are McEnroe's trademarks.
3. Did Shamil Tarpischev, the Gary Kasparov of tennis, finally slip up? I wondered about his decision not to play Igor Andreev in singles. He has a 2-1 record against Roddick, though Blake has owned him, winning all five of their matches. Tarpischev could have slotted Andreev at No. 2 and sent him in against Roddick on Friday. But it's true that Andreev is not a fast-court guy (Roddick straight-setted him at Wimbledon in 2005), and no one expected Tursunov to lay an egg like that....5. Wayne Bryan, the bros highly verbal father, was his usual ubiquitous self. On Thursday morning, I saw him sit down with a writer for an interview in the hotel restaurant. I left, drove to the Coliseum, waited in a long line to get my credential, and returned to the hotel two hours later. There was Wayne, still chattering away at the same table, to the same poor woman.
...6. Roddick was asked a couple of times during the week whether he remembered anything about the Cold War. He said no, except, of course, for Drago vs. Rocky. At the end of that answer, as another reporter began a new question, Roddick looked up with a mock-concerned look: “That was a movie, right?” The guy loves playing dumb.
...9. Did you see the ball boy take a tumble during the Blake-Youzhny match? At 5-5 and deuce in the second set, a very tense moment, he knocked off a singles stick while gathering up a netted first serve by Youzhny. The delay forced the chair umpire to give the Russian a first serve, to Blake’s irritation. Youzhny hit an ace and slapped five with the ball boy. I had to root hard for Blake to win that set, so the kid couldn’t be held responsible for losing the Davis Cup for the U.S.
"It's definitely on par with anything that I've accomplished in tennis," said Roddick, whose biggest accomplishment in individual play is winning the US Open four years ago. "It wasn't really a seven- or eight-year process to try to win the US Open. All of a sudden I was on tour and it happened before it knew it. But this has been a journey." If so, it can be broken into four major parts. The first leg of the journey was the appointment of Patrick McEnroe as captain after a short-lived stint by elder brother John. The passing of the torch from an all-time great to a brother with a less accomplished career may have symbolized beginning of the team's evolution from a group of cajoled superstars to a cohesive and dedicated unit. The second was the rise of Roddick, who benefited from Patrick McEnroe's determination to bring in younger players and build a team for the future. He has played every year since Patrick named the then 18-year-old Roddick to the team in 2001... Another important development came in 2003... McEnroe gave the salivating Bryans their first opportunity to play in the Cup competition -- and never had reason to reconsider. From then on, the U.S. went into every tie with a virtual 1-0 lead -- a traumatic loss to Croatia at home in 2005 being the only exception. That defeat marked the fourth significant change in the makeup of the team -- the end of the fluctuation in the second singles spot. Previously, Fish, Ginepri or Blake occupied the spot as their results alternately rose and fell... The stable roster eliminated the jockeying for Davis Cup spots and perhaps helped solidify team unity....Later, Russian captain Shamil Tarpishchev revealed that had the tie been at 1-1 after Friday, he would have sent his two opening singles players Mikhail Youzhny and Dmitry Tursunov back out for doubles against the Bryans and used a fresh Andreev and Davydenko in the final day's singles. What did McEnroe think of that situation? "I think it's 3-0," he replied.
..."What it does sort of on a bigger level, you know, you hope it has some effect. But to be perfectly honest, that's sort of out of our control. I think we've done our part," said McEnroe. "I certainly think that there's only positives that can come out of it. Remember, Andy went to the Davis Cup final in '92, and that was one of the things that spurred him on to become a tennis player. The Bryans went and watched in La Costa when they were, what, 10, 11 years old, and that made a big difference in their life growing up as juniors... So if we could have affected a couple of kids here or in Winston-Salem or wherever we've been the last few years, I think we've done our job."
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