On paper, the US had a slim shot at winning this tie, played in Belgrade on an indoor clay court. Clay has always been the weakest surface. Looking back at recent history, perhaps Andre Agassi was the best American clay courter? Or perhaps Jim Courier? Both would say hard courts suited their power games better.
With Andy Roddick begging out of Davis Cup and with James Blake’s ranking dropped to 50, Patrick McEnroe looked to younger talent in John Isner and Sam Querrey to play singles. These two train with one another and the Bryan brothers, trying to find ways to get their games up to international speed.
However, Serbia had one weapon that the US didn’t have: the world number 2 player, Novak Djokovic. Say what you will about Novak Djokovic, that his play is inconsistent during the Slams, that he may lack the seriousness of Federer or Nadal, but when it comes Davis Cup, Djokovic is playing. Roger Federer has decided, in recent years, not to play much Davis Cup. He realizes, as he gets older, that Davis Cup ties are placed at awkward times, typically after Slams, and he often looks to these times to rest and recover. It’s more important to Roger Federer to win more Slams than to win the Davis Cup tie where, until a player of Wawrinka’s caliber jumped to the top 20, he often had to bear the burden of winning both singles and the doubles.
Indeed, Andy Murray also has this burden, and has told his Davis Cup captain, John Lloyd that he’s not playing Davis Cup either. The drop off between Murray and the next best British player is tremendous. Without a Slam to his name, Murray has chosen to put his efforts winning that first Slam.
Rafael Nadal has generally played Davis Cup, but with his injury problems, he hasn’t played much as of late. In any case, Spain is extremely loaded in talent. Spain could field two high quality Davis Cup teams with the players it has which include, beyond Nadal, Juan Carlos Ferrero, David Ferrer, Fernando Verdasco, Feliciano Lopez, Tommy Robredo, and Albert Montanes.
Novak Djokovic understands that, only a decade and a half ago, Serbia’s reputation wasn’t so good, accused of genocide with countries of the former Yugoslavia. His success in tennis has brought a positive spin to the country. Djokovic makes the effort to play Davis Cup. The next best Serbian tennis players are Viktor Troicki and Janko Tipsarevic, whose ranking are nearly identical with Troicki ranked 35 and Tipsarevic ranked 36. Serbian Davis Cup captain, Bogdan Obradovic, opted to go with Troicki leaving Tipsarevic with doubles duty pairing with Nenad Zimonjic, the world’s number 1 doubles player (which doesn’t make a lot of sense, but is used primarily to seed teams with new partners).
On paper, the US’s best chance to win was to win the doubles and take both singles against Troicki. This wasn’t completely unreasonable. The Bryan brothers are the world number 1 doubles team. Both Isner and Querrey are ranked higher than Troicki. However, both Querrey and Isner play much better on hard courts where the speed of their serve and forehands get an extra oomph. This would be Isner’s first Davis Cup tie with a raucous crowd cheering for his opponent. And, perhaps the reason Troicki was selected: he has a 1-0 record over Isner, a hard court win in Bangkok last year.
John Isner opened up the tie against Viktor Troicki. Isner didn’t look particularly comfortable against his quicker opponent, and lost in four sets. Although Sam Querrey fought gamely, having chances to win the second set against Djokovic, he lost his match in four sets. Isner then teamed up with Bob Bryan to win the doubles in four sets when Mike Bryan had to sit out due to food poisoning.
On paper, Isner vs. Djokovic on clay strongly favored Djokovic. Isner struggled to beat Troicki, so the thinking was that Djokovic would win handily. The two had never played each other prior to this tie. Isner was able to take sets 2 and 4 and push the match to a fifth set, but was unable to break through in the fifth when Djokovic broke and took the match in five sets.
With Serbia up 3-1, this left Querrey playing a dead “rubber” (as matches in Davis Cup are called), i.e., a match that has no bearing on the outcome of the tie. In such scenarios, the match is often reduced to a best of 3 match with all sets played in tiebreaks. If a team has particularly strong players, dead rubbers are often played by alternates. For example, when the US lost to Croatia last year, the fifth rubber was also a dead one, and Bob Bryan, normally a doubles player, played singles.
However, McEnroe sees Querrey and Isner as the future of US Davis Cup (short of someone like Ryan Harrison making a big splash), and the more practice they get, even in a meaningless match, the better. To Serbia’s credit, Troicki also opted to play. With the win already assured, there was no reason for Troicki to beat Querrey other than pride. Querrey took to the offensive and won the first set 7-5, then took the next set easily, 6-2 for his first Davis Cup win.
Serbia will next take on Croatia. Both were nations under the former Yugoslavia. Croatia will have a formidable player in Marin Cilic and the always dangerous Ivo Karlovic. Serbia should have the advantage in doubles. The two countries have never played in Davis Cup so it will be up to a coin flip to decide who should host. It’s unclear what surface would be picked. If Croatia hosts, they may pick a fast indoor surface, which favors the big serving Karlovic. If Serbia hosts, they may prefer slow clay again especially for Troicki, although Troicki is also adept on faster surfaces, having reached the final of Washington DC in 2008.
Isner and Querrey will have to wait until next year to play again, although having lost in the first round, they may have to play a qualifying round to stay in the world group.