As you know, US Davis Cup coach Pat McEnroe's Team USA plays the Russians in the Cup final in Portland Oregon, on the final weekend in November. BTW, tickets for the event, which will be held in Memorial Coliseum, an arena with a just-right capacity of 12,000, sold out in 20 minutes despite that fact that Oregon's biggest college football game (The War, which is the annual clash between Oregon and Oregon State) takes place on Saturday, December 1st (doubles day).
McEnroe conducted a Davis Cup related conference call this afternoon, and some of the comments he made really underscored the fraternal nature of Davis Cup. I'm not talking about the comradely feelings harbored by teammates. I mean the general respect Davis Cup competitors have for their rivals, an esteem and affection that is a powerful, oblique comment on the mystique and spirit of the competition itself.
Oh, there's plenty of trash talking in Davis Cup, but a lot of it is either pro forma, or a half-hearted attempt to whip up a little emotion and enthusiasm on a team, or in a nation. Consider this extract from the transcript of the conference call with Pat McEnroe.
Q. I've had the feeling that the captain of the Russian Davis Cup team (Shamil Tarpishev) must be a very canny fellow. He comes and puts a surprise of Andreev against Haas. Do you take a position kind of like a football coach, you have to read the other coach?
PATRICK McENROE: No, I don't worry about that. No. I mean, first of all, Andreev is probably one of the top five or six clay court players in the world. I wouldn't call that a big surprise that he played him in the last match. . . But he (Tarpishev) has made some great moves. He certainly surprised us last year when he put Tursunov in on the final day against Roddick. That ended up being sort of an epic match, five?setter, whatever it was, 16?14 in the fifth, whatever it was, an incredible match. (NOTE: Tursunov won 17-15 if the decisive fifth set; the longest fifth set in the history of the Davis Cup World Group).
But he's got the luxury of having four or five players that are all very, very good that can play, as I said, on different surfaces. We've got a different situation. We've got two sort of clear?cut top guys. That makes my job more predictable, but at the same time predictability is not necessarily a bad thing.
Tarpishev has made some excellent moves. We'll be ready for whatever happens. At the same time, as I said earlier in talking about the court surface, we really just want to get a court that suits us. If we go out and play our game and do it successfully, we feel pretty good that we can somehow manage to win three points by the end of the weekend.
Q. Tarpischev in July, Fed Cup, ran into some visa problems. Are you worried about your counterpart getting into the country?
PATRICK McENROE: I want him to get there. We had a great week in Moscow last year when we lost to them in the semis. They took very good care of us. I'm making a special request to the State Department to let him in early, get him out there to Portland, let them get settled, and may the best team win.
No, hopefully he's cleared that up and will get it. He actually took me out to dinner early in the week one night there with Alex Metrevili (a pioneering pro from back in the old Soviet Union days). I like those guys a lot. I like them so much I really want to beat them.
(USTA press aide) TIM CURRY: The paperwork for Shamil's visa has been processed and handled. There will be no problems with his visa for the Davis Cup Final as there was for the Fed Cup semi.
Q. Did they force you to drink Russian vodka?
PATRICK McENROE: They tried. They thought maybe that would hurt my coaching skills on the sidelines. I needed to have all my wherewithal there. Didn't work, but at least I had it.
I have a feeling this is going to be an epic final, although I won't be able to attend (it's my son Luke's birthday weekend). But we'll have full coverage by Steve Tignor and Kamakshi, and you can bet I'll be watching - and commenting.