Warning: Sports heavy content and blogger's rant lead below post (scroll down to get to the match and the Colombian flavor).
It was nearly a eon ago now, but I went to see Colombia host the U.S. in a plan in game to the World Group stage. For those of you that are unfamiliar, the Davis Cup has 3 stages. The minnows and the middleweights of the world play in Regional knockout stages to get into the World Group playoff. Usually the winners of the knockout stages are countries with middling players (think India or Israel). The World Group playoff involves the knockout stage winners playing against teams from the World Group who lost in the first round. The World Group is the top 8 teams in the world who didn't lose in the first round of the previous year's World Group and the winners of the previous year's playoffs.
So in early 2010 Colombia beat Canada to get to the playoffs. The US lost to Serbia in the first round and thus had to travel to travel to Colombia in September 2010. Bummer for them, good for me.
The thing about Davis Cup that makes this all possible is that World Ranking has only to do with the matchup. It has nothing to do with who is the host of the tie (that's tennis talk for match). The team that gets to host is randomly chosen for each tie. Which is why the US was in this situation to begin with. They've had some bad luck. The other team keeps getting the choice of ground. Serbia chose clay and they beat the US on clay. If the US had hosted, the match would be on hardcourt and the US probably would have won.
So the US, with 4 players in the top 25 and the top doubles team in the world, has to travel to Serbia and play of clay. They lose. Then they lose the coin flip again and suddenly have to travel to Colombia and, of course, play on clay. Reaching into the analogy book, this match is a bit like having the NBA finals all in one city. Imagine the Lakers having to play the Thunder 5 times in Oklahoma. They lose a close one 3-2. But because they lost they have to play in to the NBA the next year. So they travel to play Spartak Moscow, only the Muscovites choose the surface. So they play on grass to take advantage of the Lakers' knee problems.
As you can imagine, this presents the US with problems almost every year. And if they were to lose this match, they would fall down into the Regional stage, which, continuing the analogy, would be like the Lakers having to play a season in the Spanish League as a result of losing the match to Spartak Moscow. It's a bit ridiculous.
Of course this could be solved if the US could find even one decent player on clay. They can't. They're awful on clay. So every single country that hosts them chooses clay. And it's especially funny because even the other countries that are awful on clay (like Australia) play the US on clay because the US is that bad on clay. Awful. Laughable. Like watching a young child learning to ice-skate. So, what to do? They could continue down this pathetic path. Hoping and praying that they get lucky and host a bunch a matches and Andy Roddick then goes on the tear of his life (like in 2007, when the US last won). Or perhaps instead of creating a generation of Roddick clones they could teach a few kids how to actually play on clay. From my tone, you can guess which I'd choose. So get your heads out of your bums USA Tennis and start teaching some kids to be clay-court specialists and save the team from this continued embarrassment!
By the way, I only blame USA Tennis. They have some serious problems. US Tennis is a mess. Pat McEnroe is doing a lot to try and save it; I hope he succeeds. And by the way, I don't hold any of this against Andy. He's a great player and deserves a tremendous amount of credit for a pretty successful career. The trouble is that his is not a game to emulate. And that's all USA Tennis seems to be able to do. He has a very one dimensional game (hard serve, big forehand). That's not good. What sets him apart from the rest of the rabble USA Tennis produces with only hard serves and big forehands is his heart. The guy has guts. He's got chutzpah spilling out his ears. I love him for it. But you can't teach that. And if you don't have his balls, you shouldn't play his style. But that seems to be the best thing that USA Tennis can come up with (and yes, I blame Bollettieri too, as I would guess Maria Sharapova does at this point too).
Onto match day. Of course, Colombia chose to host on clay. They normally play uptown at a hard-court surface, but chose to play for the first time at the Bullfighting ring. This was the first time the ring had hosted tennis (but of course, because you always play the US on clay, the only country in the world with a scouting report this easy). But good for me again, because the ring is only a couple of blocks from my apartment (I can see it right now, out my window).
Colombian's are always late to things. They affectionately call it Colombian time. If you have a meeting at 9 - don't even bother showing up until 9:30. Your meeting won't start until 9:45 or 10. Again, good for me, because it was general seating and my friend and I garnered seats at half-court about 15 rows up or so (or as I like to call them, perfect tennis seats, because I'm not a courtside guy. I like to watch the action from the best angle, not the closest one). The stadium didn't even get rocking until the second set, but they made up for it in the next 3 sets.
Mardy Fish, the US #1 on for this tie, played his ass off. He fell down a set but then won the next two. And after dropping the 4th, played a determined 5th. I'm not a huge fan of Mr. Fish (I actually had hoped for him to be benched for the tie - shows what I know. The guy gutted it out and single-handedly willed the US to victory). The match was quite the thriller. Nearly every game went to deuce. Both guys played with guts (and with tons of unforced errors - this was not a display of technical skill) and Mr. Fish earned and held up a 5th set break.
The crowd was fantastic. A good sports crowd. Not negative, but emotionally supportive of their own guys. Huge cheers went up with every point won by the home side. Flags, whistles, cheers, songs. The whole great crowd playbook. It was quite the spectacle. It resembled in many ways the atmosphere of the World Cup. The difference was, of course, that instead of watching as a neutral, here I was cheering for my country in hostile territory. And it was still great to behold. I found myself wanting Colombia to lose by only that much, so as to get the victory and get to take in the crowd as much as possible, too. In the end that's what I got. At least out of the first match. The Colombians and I were exhausted after it was over.
The second match was poor, to say the least, from the American's standpoint. Sam Querry, whom I like, was nothing short of awful. His only weapon, his serve, is impressive as hell. Several of him bombs set the crowd off gasping and oohing. They and I had never seen the like. And may not again for a long time. Big, thunderous bolts off his racket. Unfortunately for Mr. Querry his first serve percentage was not 100% and thus he crashed out to a meek straight set loss. Great for crowd watching. They were phenomenal. And even more enthusiastic for the second match. Passionate, loud, beautiful. Even with defeat I had a blast. Mr. Fish's win helped.
The US's great strength is their doubles. They rarely drop a match. So in a best of 5 - 4 singles and a doubles - all the US has to do, usually, is split the singles. So I went away happy. And so did the Colombians. More than a few people stopped me to say it's 1-1 and anybody's tie. The next day the US did win the doubles, with, you guessed it, Mr. Fish leading the way. And then to complete the tie of his career Mr. Fish gutted out another 5 setter, this time 8-6 in that 5th. My hat off as well to Santiago Giraldo, the best Colombian player, and, with another break or two, the man who may well have played Colombia into the World Group.
A final note on the crowd. As you may have surmised from this and my World Cup posts, I'm all for a certain kind of nationalism. The kind like after this match, when people shake hands and take pictures with the fans of the other team. Wish them the best of luck. The Colombians of this match, much like the Algerian or South African fans, were gracious and good-spirited and it was a pleasure to watch the match with them. I wish them the best of luck in the next year. I hope they make it back to the playoff, with a different result (unless they meet the US again, that is).
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