Roger Federer doesn’t play much Davis Cup.  It’s hard enough for him to stay healthy for Slams, so he frequently skips Davis Cup even though he has a reasonably solid number 2 in Stan Wawrinka behind him.  Andy Murray, for example, skips a lot of Davis Cup too, but he has no one ranked in the top 100 behind him.

So when the US was slated to meet Switzerland, and Roger Federer was planning to play, and it was scheduled on clay, few expected the US would be competitive.  Clay was picked because it’s Wawrinka’s best surface and Federer can pretty much play all surfaces even if clay is his weakest surface.  He’s reached numerous French Open finals.

Andy Roddick begged out of playing Davis Cup due to an injury sustained during the Australian Open, but this may have been a blessing in disguise.  Andy Roddick has lost to Federer so often that he has a mental block getting past him.  Isner had also never beaten Federer, but with a serve that’s now bigger than Andy Roddick’s serve, Isner could hope for staying even and take his chances in tiebreaks.

The first match up was Mardy Fish against Stan Wawrinka.  Frankly, neither player had played so well leading up to this tie.  Fish lost a poorly played match in Melbourne to Alejandro Falla, unable to keep the ball in play.  Wawrinka made it to the third round losing to Nicolas Almagro.  On a hard court, Fish would be more than competitive against Wawrinka, but Fish plays reasonably well on clay.  He can get to net.  He has a big serve.  He’s steady enough off the baseline.

Even so, Fish took the first set handily while Wawrinka struggled with errors.  Wawrinka came back to take sets 2 and 3 with a score 6-4.  In the fourth set, Fish came back strong with a 6-1 set, then needed a 9-7 final set to win.

OK, so the US pulled out a win over Wawrinka, but it was close, and within the realm of possibility.

However, most felt Isner didn’t really have a chance against Federer.  Isner’s main claim to fame on clay was pushing Rafa to 5 sets at Roland Garros.  That Isner lost was no surprise.  Nadal has lost about a dozen times on clay.  Isner is not known as a clay court player.  That Isner pushed him to 5 sets, the only time Nadal has ever played 5 sets on clay was the huge surprise.

So Isner knew, to stay even, he had to serve big, hope Federer was a bit off his game, and hope to win in tiebreaks.  And, to some extent, this happened.  Fed took the first set, 6-4.  Isner got a break and won the second set, 6-3.  The two played the third set to a tiebreak, one that Isner pulled out, but then Fed fell apart and had his serve broken twice to lose for the first time to Isner, 6-2 in the fourth set.

This means, in theory, a win in doubles would be enough.  Currently, Mike Bryan and Ryan Harrison are scheduled for doubles.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they plugged in Mardy Fish for doubles and hope to close this out in 3 matches.  That’s a dangerous ploy because if they fail to win doubles over Federer-Wawrinka, they’ll need Fish to take his chances against Federer.  It would probably come down to Isner trying to knock out Wawrinka, so resting Isner is perhaps more important. (Bob Bryan bowed out because his wife gave birth to a child just at the end of the Australian Open).

So the US has a reasonable shot at taking the Davis Cup tie, but it hinges on doubles.  This is far more than Captain Courier expected when the tie started.