Davis Cup 2007

[Anne]

:PWhaha I read it wrong.. I thought he was in Valencia until the 27th of November but he was in the MOUNTAINS until that date.. LOL

[maryb]

Mrs Annie, the lack of sleep has fuddled your brain cells. The USA haven't won it yet ... it could all change tonight with the doubles. You could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat ... just don't do a Scotland ....

Enjoyed the second rubber - 3 tiebreaks. Good play from both guys.

[Annie]

maryb said:

Mrs Annie, the lack of sleep has fuddled your brain cells. The USA haven't won it yet ... it could all change tonight with the doubles

Can I have whatever it is you're on? LMAO ;D ;D ;D

[maryb]

It's a Scottish thing. We snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but we expect others to go far. And I've got money on this result again ... which reminds me, I need to get the bet on for the Big Yin winning Wimbles. ;D

Why aren't you in bed? You've got another long night ahead of you.

[Annie]

[Annie]

maryb said:

Why aren't you in bed? You've got another long night ahead of you.

Naaah won't be THAT long...and I just woke up ;D

[SAFINNO1]

Well this whole DC final was an anti-climax over in the 2nd day - no offence but Bryans are not losing for nobody (by saying this im hoping i jinx them).

Just one thing that i maybe would have changed - i would have put Andreev with Roddick and Dima with Blake - i think Andreev beat Roddick in their last match on hard court in States.

But oh well Russia's 1st DC loss since Croatia in Sep 2005 (team which was without Marat again) - Its also a new russian record of 7 straight consecutive DC tie winning streak which had to come to an end.

But im sure in 2008 Russia will still be the team to beat!!

UDACHI BOYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mrs. Fabregas]

It's over

DC 2007 winners : USA

Igor and Kolya tried hard (at least, they really did in the 1st set saw wonderful tennis in that one!), but they just weren't good enough to beat the BB

[helloticky]

but for 2008 GO GO Russia GO GO....beat them Serbia

[maryb]

Mrs Annie, my drug-induced dream is over. The first set was great though - the boys really came together as a team. Still think Davy boy should have been put on the spot for the singles. Irrespective of his DC record, he's in theory the best man on the team.

Ah well, that's it all over for another year. Roll on 2008.

And no more cold-remedies for me ... my lungs have returned in aniticipation of returning to the daily grind tomorrow ...

[davis]

DC Wrap
Posted 12/03/2007 @ 1 :58 AM

On Saturday Andy Roddick was asked if he cared whether the final score against Russia ended up being 5-0. He said no (obviously), because he didn’t have any “Belichek in me.” With that in mind, I won’t do any beside-the-point analysis of Sunday's matches, except to say that Bob Bryan looked a little better in singles than I remembered. Matt Cronin from Inside Tennis mentioned this weekend that he still couldn’t believe Bob had given up his singles career, and that he would have been solidly in the Top 50. He may be right.

Instead, here are 10 odd-and-sods-style observations from the weekend that didn’t make it into my other posts.

1. If only doubles had the kind of presentation that it gets in Davis Cup more often. Halfway through the first set on Saturday, I realized that I was more involved in the dubs from point to point than I had been in during the singles. You have the rapid-fire points, the hands at net, and the variety that comes from seeing four players and four styles. All of which is so much better when every point means something. How do you create this kind of forum for doubles on the tour? Jon Wertheim, a big supporter, suggested one way would be to put doubles finals on before singles finals at majors.

2. Was there local interest in the Cup? A moderate amount, I'd say. Posters of the U.S. team were plastered on lightposts downtown. There was a brief feature on the local news each night (one local female newscaster thought the Bryans were “cute” because “you know, they’re twins”). The Oregonian covered it on the front page of its sports section, though the New York Times had more coverage, with news pieces by Chris Clarey and columns by Harvey Araton.

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.

What was funny was watching Tarpischev basically blame it all on Youzhny while the guy was sitting right next to him at the press table. Tarp said that his plans—to send in Andreev and Davydenko on Sunday with the team down 1-2—were blown because he expected his No. 1 to win. Youzhny didn’t look bothered by the comments, and I’m sure Tarpischev didn’t mean anything disparaging by them. He thought he was going to win, that’s all. But it was hard to imagine Pat Mac saying the same thing about Roddick with Andy 2 feet away.

4. The USTA and music: hopeless?

Songs heard before matches: “For Those About to Rock”; “Theme from Star Wars.”

Song played by marching band during the doubles: “Call Me” (yes, it’s from a movie about a gigolo).

Song played when the U.S. got close to victory in each match: “Louie, Louie.”

Songs played after matches: “Wooly Bully,” and after the clincher, Neil Diamond’s “America.”

On second thought, “For Those About to Rock” did indeed rock, and during the Blake match “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” ripped its way through the arena. It sounded downright evil in that setting.

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.

On the night before the doubles, another journalist and I ran into him in the lobby. He rarely watches the bros live; both sides get too tense. Believe it or not, Wayne had planned to fly to Chicago on Saturday, the day his sons would be playing in the DC final, to emcee a senior event with Jim Courier. But at the last minute, when it was clear that Bob and Mike had a very good chance to clinch, he changed his mind and stayed. The next day he was at the center of a huge group of Bryan family members, all in matching T-shirts

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.

7. Mardy Fish and Robby Ginepri were also in the house. They came along as high-level practice partners, though Ginepri also seemed to have been drafted as a figure of fun for Blake and Roddick. In the buzzy post-clinch presser, the two begged us to “ask Robby Ginepri a question!” Roddick said, “Ask him to multiply something!” Someone finally went to Fish instead, who excitedly pulled the mike up to his face and said, “Bring it!” He was asked how it felt to watch the victory on the sidelines. Fish gave a warm answer about how everyone from the trainers to the practice players were made to feel like they were part of this team.

Ginepri did get a question at the end, but his answer was not as memorable as Roddick and Blake promised us it would be—he may have gotten farther into the champagne than the others. Afterward I saw Ginepri walk past Donald Young, who was doing a one-on-one interview, and pull the unsuspecting teen's sweat pants down. The next day, Bob Bryan said about the previous night’s celebration, "I left around 1:00 because I knew I was probably going to be on the card. But I guess, you know, Robby Ginepri got back at 5:00 in the morning. Some guys went a little deeper.”

8. Both Friday and Saturday, in the midst of the over-the-top pre-match build-up, the blaring music was silenced and the swirling lights were dimmed for the Russian national anthem. A woman from the Portland area came out in an evening dress (in the early afternoon) and sang it beautifully. The Russian team put their arms around each other, swayed a little, and sang along. It was something for them to hold onto in a sea of Americana.

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.

10. As for Portland itself, I didn’t get to see enough, and what I did see was often through driving rain. I went to two very good restaurants and visited the outstanding Powell’s bookstore (purchased: a cool old paperback of Cheever’s Wapshot Chronicle; ditto for Wilcox’s Modern Baptists; and a collection of SI legend Dan Jenkins). If I lived here, I would almost certainly waste hours, days, weeks, months in that place. I also spent a late night in a hotel bar where a room full of strangers were involved in one big, heated discussion of the BCS.

Sunday I met up with the former editor of Puncture, a defunct rock magazine that I wrote for during the 90s. It was a true blast from the past, back into another life when music, movies, and books were life-and-death subjects. Steve is the editor’s name, and he told me today that he and his wife had moved to Portland 15 years ago because they “didn’t want to have jobs.” They’ve succeeded in this fairly low-rent town in avoiding the 9 to 5 world while still publishing magazines and books.

We had a good time doing what you do in Portland, sitting in a coffee shop and talking about how we could get our hands on some Jamaican gospel records (any ideas?). I told Steve that I’d heard an old favorite band of ours, the Clean, had played a reunion show in a small club in New York this weekend. “I’ll bet that would have beaten the Davis Cup,” he said. Would it have? Not quite, I finally decided: The Clean were a great band, but they’ll play again someday, somewhere. The U.S. team breaking a 12-year Davis Cup drought in front of a home crowd? That's not happening again any time soon.

[yarina]

very nice article- thanks Anette.

Steve Tignor is probably one of the few guys who does not need to be sarcastic or ironic in oreder to produce a both good and popular post; and of course neither does he write cheap galanteries: he has a classy, polite writing style, I would say, but quite insightful at the same time. (I've just read his other two DC posts - both good reads - at least for me)

[marti]

Silvitza, could you pls give a link. It's not clear what is the source.
thank you

[yarina]

marti,

these are the two articles I was referring to:

tennisworld.typepad.com/thewrap/2007/12/answering-the-q.html

tennisworld.typepad.com/thewrap/2007/12/going-up-swingi.html

(for more steve tignor articles go to www.tennis.com and you'll see a link for "concrete elbow" right above the one for "peter bodo's tennisworld"

[marti]

silvitzaá
thank you!