In 2007, the U.S. beat Russia to win the Davis Cup in Portland. Afterward, in the beery post-clinch press conference—we could hear the team chanting “U.S.A.!” as they marched down the hall together—Andy Roddick and James Blake laughingly demanded that reporters ask their non-playing teammates Robby Ginepri and Mardy Fish a question. (They specifically told us to ask Ginepri to “multiply something.”) When someone finally obeyed and began to address Fish, he grabbed the mike and blurted, “Bring it!” The question was a simple and obvious one about how he felt being on a Cup-winning team. Fish gave it a more emotional answer than might have been expected at that moment. He talked about how honored he was just to have been a part of it, to have played some important matches along the way, and to have helped out where he could. For a second, at least, the room was quiet.
At that point, Fish was largely the forgotten man of U.S. tennis. After a few years of back and forth, Blake had established himself as the team’s No. 2 and relegated his friend to hitting-partner status. Fish never showed any public bitterness, and he kept coming to ties. The 29-year-old got his reward this weekend in a place he could never have expected, a red-clay bullring in the elevated climes of Colombia. Fish became the first American since Pete Sampras in 1995 to win three rubbers in one tie (that’s three matches in one round, for the Davis Cup uninitiated). In 11 hours of tennis, the equivalent of what Isner and Mahut did over a similar period of time at Wimbledon, Fish eked out two five-set singles matches and a four-setter in doubles. From what I could tell, even at the end of his third match he wasn’t tired. He’s lost weight, as we know, but Fish and his physio also credit something called Generation UCAN for his stamina. It’s an energy drink with a “unique carbohydrate called SuperStarch” which was originally created to treat a child who couldn’t produce blood sugar. “I get stronger as the game progresses,” Fish said, somewhat eerily, in a press release for the stuff at the start of the U.S. Open.
Whatever this wonder drink is doing—Fish did look eerily stronger as his matches went on—the American was also fortunate that both of his singles opponents, after raising the home crowd’s hopes, let the occasion get to them. Giraldo’s case was especially tragic. After playing with so much positive energy and intelligence for five sets—his percentage game from the baseline was masterful—he couldn’t get the ball over the net after he finally earned a chance to serve for it. Still, I’ll never forget the sight of him leaping in the air over and over at 3-5 in the fourth set and getting everyone in the stadium on their feet with him. But Fish beat him eventually, the same way he did Alejandro Falla on the first day: By staying patient, applying pressure at the right moments, and hanging around long enough to let his opponent implode. Fish said afterward that it was the performance of his life, and it was. The U.S. remains in the World Group, which should also get him in pretty good with whoever replaces Patrick McEnroe as captain next year.
Fish’s wasn’t the only heroic performance of the weekend. Making attacking tennis look like child’s play, Michael Llodra won two matches to lead France to the final. There they’ll face the Serbs, who were led back from the brink of defeat against the Czech Republic by Novak Djokovic and Janko Tipsarevic.
It was an entertaining, though time-consuming, weekend if you had the Tennis Channel. Maybe that’s the key to making the Cup a bigger deal—dedicating a channel to zooming from tie to tie over each weekend and showing as much as possible. The scope of the event is underappreciated—totally unappreciated, in fact—but whatever coverage it gets, it remains a strange interlude in the season, like an alternative tennis universe that we glimpse four times a year. Watching the U.S. team bounce up and down in triumph, and Llodra run around like a banshee after clinching the doubles for France, I tried to think of an equivalent in another sport. I guess in basketball it would be like having the Olympics cut into the NBA season on four separate occasions. In Davis Cup, the players come together for a weekend, feed off the team energy, experience emotional highs and lows they experience nowhere else in the sport, and then go their separate ways again.
It’s imperfect and seriously under-marketed, but this weekend the Davis Cup did what it always does best: Spread the glory. When else is Llodra going to get to take his aging but brilliant game to center stage? When else is Mardy Fish going to get bloody, draw a heart over his chest with his finger, and play the role of life-saving hero? I didn’t see what Djokovic did when he won, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that he went ballistic. I also heard rumors of similar heroics by the Indians against Brazil. Tennis in its tournament form is a selfish sport, and it can be hard for a lot of guys to stay motivated when they’re not playing for anyone else. Davis Cup shows us that it isn’t just Federer and Nadal who have greatness in them. Dozens of other guys own a little of it; it's just waiting for the right moment to come out, even if, like Fish, it takes years of hanging around on the sidelines. The best thing about DC is that it gives these guys that opportunity; it democratizes success in a normally all-or-nothing sport. It’s just too bad more sports fans don’t get to see that success.