The word is that Davis Cup either brings out a player’s best or destroys him. The men’s team event lived up to both of those reputations this weekend. In California, Andy Roddick put his recent setbacks behind him and showed off the competitive range and savvy that comes from having won 18 times for your country in the past. In Pau, France, Richard Gasquet, a 19-year-old who has also faltered this year, played 10 sets of generally excellent tennis and came away with nothing.
By all accounts, representing your country is a uniquely intense experience—even Bjorn Borg admitted that he had trouble sleeping before one Davis Cup match (only one, though, the rest of the time he was fine). But the game’s best players adjust. Laver, Borg, McEnroe, Lendl, Wilander, Becker, Edberg, Agassi, Sampras, Hewitt, Safin, and Nadal all led their nations to at least one DC title. Of the greats, only Jimmy Connors and Roger Federer are without one. For some, though, it can take awhile to make the adjustment. The classic model for this is Sampras. A deer in the headlights in the 1991 final in France, where he lost twice, Sampras came back four years later to win all three matches in the ’95 final in Russia, the last time the U.S. won the Cup.
Andy Roddick, on the other hand, took to the DC experience right away. He won his first seven matches (all singles; Roddick has never played dubs in DC), and his win yesterday made him 7-0 in tie-deciding matches. Like McEnroe, Roddick is a team-sports lover; but unlike Mac, he doesn’t consider himself an untouchable genius. He’s just a teammate. When he beat Nicolas Massu on Friday, after James Blake had suffered a crushing loss to Fernando Gonzalez 10-8 in the fifth set, Roddick said he was “happy to have James’ back, like he had mine last time.”
While Roddick was hardly perfect over the weekend, his ability to gauge the mood of each match and compete accordingly was impressive, even Connors-esque. Those who remember Connors primarily from his David Lee Roth impersonation at the 1991 U.S. Open might be surprised to learn what a cagey and pragmatic competitor he was. During his win over McEnroe in the 1982 Wimbledon final, he hid under his mop-top and stared at his shoes for five sets, leaving McEnroe alone with his self-torture.
Roddick used a similar approach against Massu on Friday. The crowd was shell-shocked after Blake’s demise, so with the sun going down, Roddick kept a low profile—he was subdued, but also determined not to throw the whole tie away. When he missed a backhand, he would shadow the stroke a few times, as if this were a practice session. He also knew that he had an advantage over Massu on grass, which made quiet confidence the order of the day. It’s not like you can out-intense Massu anyway. The Chilean, whose double gold at the 2004 Olympics has become a benchmark of tennis grittiness, spent much of the match in one continuous fist-pump. Between points, he stalked the court with both hands balled up, angrily talking to himself.
It didn’t help him in the end. At 6-5 in the third-set tiebreaker, with play about to be called because of darkness, Roddick choked on his second serve, spinning it just over the net at about 60 m.p.h. Massu, ready for anything but that, shanked the return wide. Roddick’s reaction, as any lip-reader could see, was a relieved “Holy s---!”
Sunday was a different day, different feel. After the Bryans’ win in doubles on Saturday, the U.S. was suddenly in a position to clinch. Both audiences, Americans and Chileans, were primed for a showdown between their teams’ No. 1s, Roddick and Gonzalez. When Gonzo won the first set and pulled even in the second, the Chileans began to up the ante. Roddick seemed to sense that the match could slip away in a sea of red flags, as it had for Blake two days earlier. So he took it by the throat. After winning a point at net to hold serve in the second set, Roddick walked toward a group of fans and cursed them out vehemently from the middle of the court. (Andy was a lip-reader’s dream this weekend.)
From there, Roddick went on to win the next three sets and the tie. He played well and, unlike Blake at the crucial junctures, he fought well. On Friday, Blake had served for the match against Gonzalez at 5-4 in the third. Gonzo hit a ball that was called wide, making the score 30-30. Chilean captain Hans Gildemeister jumped to his feet and argued; shockingly, the call was overturned. Blake’s only response was a sarcastic smile, and he ended up losing the point. On Sunday, Gildemeister was jumping out of his seat in the middle of points, but Roddick wasn’t having any of it. He confronted Gildemeister angrily, which eventually led to the referee instructing the Chilean to stay in his seat. Sometimes this is what it takes to win in Davis Cup.
As tough as DC can be, it's rarely as heartbreaking as it was for Gasquet this weekend. Things didn’t start badly—despite the pressure of being the French team’s No. 1, Gasquet rose to the occasion in his first match, against Marat Safin. While the Russian’s game was tailor-made for Pau’s slick indoor court, Gasquet stood toe to toe with the bigger man. Their rallies were like a series of gunshots to the far corners of the court.
Gasquet, like Federer, has a seemingly infinite variety of shots. This isn’t always a blessing. It took the world’s No. 1 a few years to select the right shot for the right moment, and Gasquet is still learning to be single-minded enough to do the same thing. Up 4-3 in the first-set tiebreaker, he chose to serve and volley twice. While he has great hands at net, his strong suit is still his baseline play. He lost both points and the set.
Sunday was even worse. It’s one thing to lose to Marat Safin in five sets indoors; it’s another to lose a tie-deciding match to Dmitry Tursunov after being up two sets to one. Tursunov, a go-for-broke baseliner who will never serve as anyone’s strategic role model, lost the third-set tiebreaker after being up 4-2. He came out at the beginning of the fourth and basically began firing ground strokes in a blind rage. Unfortunately for Gasquet, they all went in. By the final game of the fifth set, all he could do was shake his head and stare up at his father in total frustration and disbelief. It was tough to watch.
The phrase is “that which does not destroy you only makes you stronger.” When it comes to Davis Cup, that which does destroy you can also make you stronger. Like Sampras a decade ago, Gasquet is too talented not to redeem himself someday. Is that true of Roddick? The U.S. travels to Moscow in September for the semifinals, which will most likely be played on red clay. The last time Roddick saw late-round Davis Cup dirt, he ended up a two-time loser in the 2004 final in Spain. We’ll find out how much stronger that made him.