Davis Cup

Davis Cup continues golden year in tennis

2008 is proving a golden year in tennis. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have taken their rivalry at the top of men’s tennis to new heights with their Wimbledon final, they joined with the Williams sisters in winning gold medals at a truly memorable Olympic tennis event, and a wonderfully competitive US Open has just broken many of its previous records.
The Davis Cup by BNP Paribas is also contributing to this stellar year. The beauty of the competition is that it can sometimes throw up some wonderfully unexpected stories – like Croatia’s victory over the USA in the 2005 first round which was a stepping stone to the country’s first Davis Cup title nine months later – but this year the four leading team tennis nations of the current decade have all made it to the last four, promising a high-quality denouement to the competition.After years of underachievement, Spain has finally become a Davis Cup heavyweight since the turn of the century. Its ecstatic victory over Australia in the 2000 final in Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi seemed the logical culmination of Spain’s increasing dominance of the world’s top 100. That dominance has increased throughout this decade, and so has Spain’s impact on the sport’s top team competition.After a final in 2003, which the Spaniards lost to an Australian team enjoying the last gasp of a now faded generation, Spain won its second title in 2004 in what was Nadal’s breakthrough year. In his debut Davis Cup tie, the 17-year-old Mallorcan, still 16 months short of his first French Open title, won a live fifth rubber to see a weakened Spain through in the Czech city of Brno. In retrospect it seems strange that his selection over Juan Carlos Ferrero to play singles in the final against America was something of a shock, but in beating Andy Roddick on the opening day, Nadal put Spain out of reach and allowed for wild celebrations when Carlos Moya beat Roddick to seal the title in front of 27,200 spectators in Seville.Spain’s opponents in the up-coming semifinals are Davis Cup heavyweights by any standards. The USA’s win over Russia in Portland last December was their 32nd title, but only the second since 1995. Yet the Americans have been major players in the competition throughout this decade under the captaincy of Patrick McEnroe, who took over after his brother John’s three-tie reign ended in a 5-0 defeat to Spain in the 2000 semis.The younger McEnroe has nurtured a team that has posted five semifinal appearances in eight years, largely with the same team. In his first tie as captain he gave a debut to Andy Roddick, and in 2003 overcame his initial reluctance to pick a specialist doubles pair by selecting the Bryan twins, who have since gone on to become one of the Davis Cup’s greatest pairings. Although he is missing James Blake for the visit to Madrid, there’s no question the American squad is now made up of players who revel in the team variant of this very individual sport, a factor which has allowed them to stick with the best despite not having the depth of talent available during the 1990s.Russia can also look back on five semifinals this decade. It has not had the depth of talent to choose from that Spain and Argentina has, but has used its half-dozen world class players to great effect to win ties in which it started as underdog. The best example came in the 2007 first round when Marat Safin and Igor Andreev beat Chile on the clay of Santiago in the absence of Russia’s other glamorous names.The mastermind behind Russia’s success has been Shamil Tarpischev, the wily captain who was once a government minister. He has done deals with his players to ensure they take breaks from certain ties in return for shouldering the burden in others. It has led to two titles for Russia, both won on live fifth rubbers – Mikhail Youzhny’s coming-out party against the luckless Paul-Henri Mathieu in 2002, and Marat Safin’s triumph over José Acasuso on home soil in 2006.Argentina finds itself in a similar position to where Spain was 10 years ago. It has been a golden era for Argentina’s men in terms of populating the world’s top 100, and that has meant notable individual triumphs, headed by Gaston Gaudio’s French Open title in 2004 when three of the four semifinalists were Argentinian. But it has never turned that success into Davis Cup dominance, and has just one final (Moscow 2006) to show for its five semifinals this decade.In a country mad about football (soccer), Argentina’s players know the way to their sports fans’ hearts is via success in team competitions. That perhaps explains why Argentina has developed such an impressive home record in the Davis Cup by BNP Paribas, even this year when the country has done very little on the tour outside Juan-Martin del Potro’s 23-match unbeaten run over recent weeks. David Nalbandian is the torchbearer of the team – he has never lost a Davis Cup match, singles or doubles, on home soil, and his relatively poor year on the tour could all be because his focus is on the one competition that really matters to the Argentina sporting public.It would be disrespectful to focus so much on Spain, USA, Russia and Argentina as to detract from the titles won this decade by France (2001), Australia (2003) and Croatia (2005). But in terms of Davis Cup consistency, the big four have accounted for 20 of the 36 semifinalists since 2000. They are the dominant nations of the current era, and as such promise not only superb semifinals and a final, but also guarantee that the 2008 champion nation will be a very worthy one.