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 Inside Tennis
Posted: Tuesday July 20, 1999 02:36 PM Bigger Balls in Davis Cup For the second year in a row, the U.S. dropped a Davis Cup tie at home By L. Jon Wertheim
At the inaugural Davis Cup competition in 1900, there were no $450 tickets, the matches weren't simulcast on a JumboTron in downtown Boston, and the players arrived without personal racket stringers. Still, there were striking similarities between that first tie and last weekend's electrifying encounter between the U.S. and Australia on the Cup's centennial. The events were played at the same venue -- the Longwood Cricket Club in Brookline, Mass. -- and, as ever, the team format and overlay of patriotism imbued the matches with an intensity and purity seldom seen at tennis tournaments.
After watching his compatriots Todd Martin and Jim Courier spring a stunning upset of Great Britain in a first-round tie in April, Sampras had called U.S. captain Tom Gullikson and inquired about rejoining the team for the second round. Sampras's offer came with a noble, if silly, caveat: Reluctant to shunt either Martin or Courier off the stage, Petey-come-lately wanted to make only a doubles cameo. To many, the notion of the best player of this generation sitting on the sidelines made less sense than the lyrics to Livin' La Vida Loca. The Aussies, in fact, regarded Sampras's doubles-only pledge skeptically. "I'm expecting some shoulder and elbow injuries," half-joked team captain John Newcombe, referring to the rule that teams can make substitutions only when players are injured. With Sampras on the bench, the U.S. fell behind 2-0 last Friday. Whipping lasers from the backcourt, diminutive 18-year-old Lleyton Hewitt dispatched Martin in four sets. Patrick Rafter, who will become the world's top-ranked on July 26, then dismembered Courier. Thus it was left to Sampras to keep the U.S.'s hopes alive the next day. Paired with Alex O'Brien, Sampras did little to distinguish himself, but the Americans prevailed against Sandon Stolle and Mark Woodforde in five gripping sets. Reporters then asked Gullikson about Sampras's availability for the reverse singles on Sunday. Coyly, Gullikson said that substituting Sampras was "a possibility" and that Martin "has really not been healthy all year." This was news to Martin, who told journalists he felt fine. Sunday kicked off with a moving ceremony honoring a legion of past Davis Cuppers. Words such as sportsmanship and dignity were bandied about. At roughly the same time, Gullikson was telling Sampras that he might play singles against Rafter. After giving Martin "a visual examination," the U.S. team doctor, David Altchek, said Martin was suffering from heat exhaustion and should not play. Problem was, under Davis Cup rules, a player's injury must be deemed legit by a neutral physician, and when Boston orthopedic surgeon G. Richard Paul examined Martin, he declared him fit to compete. "We asked for proof like an electrolyte count and body temperature," says a physician who consulted with Paul. "They didn't give us anything." In fairness to Martin, a player known for his integrity, he appeared woozy and took IV fluids before his match with Rafter. But after Gullikson's remarks the previous day, the situation smelled more peculiar than Vegemite. In either a triumph of will or a confirmation of Paul's assessment, Martin won the first two sets against Rafter. The Aussie, however, had plenty of fight in him. In the infernal 120° courtside heat he grew stronger as the afternoon progressed, and he won his 11th straight five-set match. That sealed the U.S. team's second Davis Cup debacle at home in less than a year (after a loss to Italy in Milwaukee last fall) and may have placed a chalk outline around Gullikson's tenure as captain. As for the Aussies, they celebrated in style. They mobbed Rafter on the court before turning to their loud cheering section and -- Brandi Chastain, you created a monster -- ripping off their shirts. "What a great feeling, especially this being the 100th year of Davis Cup," said Rafter. "We sure had a lot of drama this weekend, didn't we, mate?"
New African-American Star? In keeping with a Davis Cup tradition, James Blake endured some good-natured hazing as the U.S. team's youngest practice partner. One of his chores was to give a speech at a team dinner before last weekend's tie. Blake, an affable 19-year-old who had just finished his sophomore year at Harvard, spoke movingly about how honored he felt to be on a team of players he had idolized as a kid. "When I sat down, no one said anything," Blake says wistfully. "Then Jim Courier told me I need to make better eye contact, and everyone started laughing." Fortunately for Blake, his calling in life is not as a spokesman but as a strokes man. After finishing the college season ranked No. 1 and reaching the NCAA singles final (he lost to Florida's Jeff Morrison in three sets), Blake turned pro. At 6'1" and a wiry 155 pounds, he is a superb athlete who covers the court like a tarp, hits the ball hard and draws high marks for his tennis acumen. "He reminds me a little of Tim Henman at that age," says Tom Gullikson. "When you talk about promising young Americans, he's way up there." With a white mother and an African-American father, Blake has the additional pressure wrought by race. While he grew up middle-class in Fairfield, Conn., he first gripped a racket in the Harlem Junior Tennis Program, for which his dad, Thomas, was a volunteer coach. "If kids, especially in the inner city, want to look up to me, I don't want to disappoint them," says James, who plans on returning to Harvard to get his degree in economics when his pro career is over. His older brother, Thomas Jr., who graduated from Harvard in 1998, is ranked No. 420 on the ATP tour, so James knows of the rigors that confront new pros trying to qualify for main draws. But because of his sterling college career -- and his recent signing with omnipotent IMG -- he ought to receive his share of wild-card entries. Early this month, in fact, he got a free pass to the first round of the Newport event and won his first ATP tour match. His opponent, Mal Washington, is one of the lamentably few other African-Americans on tour. "Everything's happening pretty fast," says Blake. "Of course, someday I'd love to be out there representing our country in Davis Cup, not just serving as a practice partner." Surely by then his rhetorical skills will pass muster.
Bigger Balls in Davis Cup: In hopes of countering runaway racket technology and of blunting ballistic serves, the International Tennis Federation will start a two-year trial of a larger (and slower) tennis ball, albeit only on fast surfaces. The first laboratory will be low-level Davis Cup and Federation Cup ties in early 2000. The new ball, roughly 8% larger than current balls, which are 2 1/2-2 5/8" in diameter, creates more air resistance and gives returners an extra .03 of a second to react. That amounts to 10% more time to read a serve. "The ball will make tennis more attractive to spectators," says Andrew Coe, the ITF's head of technology. Still, it will be quite some time before the oversized orbs infiltrate the ATP tour -- if they ever do. Like most innovations in tennis, the bigger balls are being met with hostility from players. Before last Saturday's Davis Cup doubles match, hard-serving Pete Sampras dismissed the permutation as "just plain ridiculous."
Issue date: July 26, 1999
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