In 1991, France met the US in the Davis Cup finals. Yannick Noah, the 1983 French Open champion, was the Davis Cup captain. Although he could have chosen to play, he opted to name Guy Forget and Henri Leconte to the team. Leconte was a bit of a wildcard. Hugely talented, Leconte could play up
Much like the World Cup that just concluded (Rafael Nadal made an appearance in South Africa to support Spain in its first win), the Davis Cup is actually tiered. Most of the media focuses on the top tier, the World Group, which starts with 16 teams, and goes four rounds over four different times of
Since we're only on the second day of Davis Cup (each round taking 3 days to complete), not every tie has been complete, but a few, like the Spain-France tie are complete. Russia is playing Argentina in Moscow. They are playing indoors at the Olympic Stadium. With Nikolay Davydenko barely back from his injury (he
In 1991, the US reached the finals of Davis Cup, and they met France in the finals. At that time, Yannick Noah was captain of the Davis Cup team. The captain is almost always a former player, and Noah was more of a player-captain, but he chose not to play in the finals instead playing
These two nations separated by the Pyrenees are probably responsible for more top tennis players than any other two countries in the world. It speaks to the two respective countries' talent development that produces players like Tsonga, Monfils, Simon, Mathieu, Benneteau, Llodra, etc. for France and Nadal, Verdasco, Ferrer, Ferrero, Lopez, etc. for Spain. Although
Davis Cup is the closest that tennis has to a team challenge outside of the Olympics. Because we're so obsessed with the best players playing Davis Cup, we fret that Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, and Andy Murray have frequently begged out of Davis Cup duties to focus on the Slams. It's interesting how many people
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 US down 2-0 to Serbia, it came once again to the Bryan brothers, the world's number 1 doubles team to salvage the doubles and push competition into a third day. The bad news? Mike Bryan, eating chicken curry in Belgrade, came down with food poisoning and was unable to play. What were the choices?
This is the first time the Davis Cup hasn't had one of Andy Roddick or James Blake in recent memory. Roddick told Davis Cup captain, Patric McEnroe, that he was advised not to play Davis Cup because the change of playing hard courts to clay courts wasn't good for his body. Roddick has had an
You would think, with the year-end championship, this year called ATP World Tour Finals, which was played November 29th, that there would be no more tennis to be played. Au contraire. There was one last piece of unfinished business. The Davis Cup Final. Spain, again, found itself in the finals. They were heavily favored on
