Know When to Roll 'Em

I just realized that so far I had neglected to mention that my colleague-in-blogs, Steve Tignor, will be covering the Davis Cup final over at Concrete Elbow. He arrived in Portland yesterday evening, and should have a post on the draw before too long. We will also be covering and discussing the Davis Cup over the next few days here at TennisWorld. We will also be getting special dispatches from frequent poster GVgirl, who is in Portland as well.

I skipped this final for a couple of reasons, starting with the fact that it's Cowboy Luke's fifth birthday tomorrow, and we have some related activities over the weekend - including a party for his K-114 class at an Upper West Side kiddie gym.

Any notion that the Davis Cup final draw ceremony would be a tedious affair on par with the making of, oh, the US Open draw was pretty much ruled out by the fact that the Russian Davis Cup coach is Shamil Tarpischev. This guy is the ultimate example of a coach who knows when to roll 'em, and over the years  he's managed to do something extraordinary: make the Davis Cup captaincy appear to be a job on the order of being a head basketball or football coach - that is, a role that offers plenty of room for athletic chess and tactical maneuvering.

This is partly because Tarpischev is astute - and more than a mite Machiavellian - but also to some degree situational. Every once in a while, you get a group of players or even a potential match-up (often surface related) that invites a coach to break with the safe, productive convention of using his two most highly ranked singles players, and a doubles team from a small pool of homegrown squads. In this case, the Russians have a clutch of highly gifted players, a fair number of whom are flaky or otherwise inconsistent. Yet they have games that travel well from surface to surface, somewhat reducing the built-in advantage the US has in hosting the tie on fast indoor hard courts.

Once again, Tarpischev has options to strut his stuff.

To make the draw , the name of the No. 1 singles player of each nation is put into a hat. Since it's pre-ordained that the No. 1 of each nation will play the No. 2 of the other on Day 1, and that the fifth and final match of the tie will be between the No. 2 players, the draw is over the moment the first and only name is drawn. This time, it happened to be Andy Roddick (not Mikhail Youzhny), and from there the line-up was penciled in, pro forma.

Andy Roddick (USA) v Dmitry Tursunov (RUS)
James Blake (USA) v Mikhail Youzhny (RUS)
Bob/Mike Bryan (USA) v Igor Andreev/Nikolay Davydenko (RUS)
Andy Roddick (USA) v Mikhail Youzhny (RUS)
James Blake (USA) v Dmitry Tursunov (RUS)

I'll save my analysis of how this tie might play out, and the issues at stake, for tomorrow. I also hope to have a report from GVgirl on the atmosphere out there, and I know Steve will be doing a great job over at Concrete Elbow.