Dude - It's, Like..

The good news for the U.S. today is that we managed to stay up in the Davis Cup major leagues (details here) thanks mainly to a solid showing by the Bryan twins and a great effort by Andy Roddick (if you're looking for "mojo" puns here, you're going to be disappointed).

But before we begin backslapping and tooting our own horns, let’s look at this achievement in perspective. Once upon a time, stories of heroic efforts by American Davis Cup players tended to be generated at Davis Cup finals, and against opponents with serious ballast in their ships (Australia comes to mind).

Belgium is not Australia, Spain, or even Argentina. Belgium is the Rhode Island of Europe, only smaller, and it's better known for producing waffles than warrior-athletes, although I understand some of the girls from there are doing quite well . . .

Bottom line: Olivier Rochus, the pint-sized (5-foot-5, 130 pounds) Belgian dynamo, almost single-handedly whipped the U.S. He crushed James Blake, worrried the Bryans, then gave Roddick all he can handle in the decisive fourth rubber. This is a guy who failed at his childhood ambition ("to be tall") and who was giving away 9 inches and at least 70 pounds to Roddick. It took Andy 4 hours and 32 minutes—the longest U.S. Davis Cup match since the advent of the tiebreaker era—to wrestle Rochus down.

Granted, this sells Andy short by a bit. That Rochus gave him such a brawl is a credit to the Belgian (he's one of TennisWorld's favorites), not a denigration of Roddick. And in this match, Roddick demonstrated that, for all the carping about his one-dimensional game and whining about how he lives by power alone, his assets are real, highly developed, and worthy of the utmost respect. Anybody who wins a critical tiebreaker, on clay, at an away tie, in a crucial match, by serving aces on five of the seven points he wins, has performed at the highest possible level in tennis.

Still, Davis Cup is great in myriad ways (more on that in later posts) and one of them is the degree to which it serves as a national depth chart—as well as a barometer of a nation’s state of tennis health. For nobody really rides a one-trick pony to Davis Cup glory; the only exception in recent memory was the 1975 Swedish team, carried to the title by Bjorn Borg (Switzerland, with Roger Federer, could turn a comparable feat. On the other hand, the rate at which Swiss No. 2 Stanislas Wawrinka is progressing, they could be a nation favored to win as early as 2006).

And please—no talk about this tie being on clay—not when Olivier Rochus himself prefers hard courts.

So here we are. This is what American tennis has come to. It takes a great effort by Andy Roddick against a Little Person (I know that using the word "midget" is politically incorrect) to keep us treading water in the World Group.

The big story in this tie was Roddick’s clinching win. But the important stories were the Bryan brothers, and Blake’s disappointing performance. Doubles is probably the most overlooked component in Davis Cup play, and one of the great things about the competition is the pivotal role of doubles. Great Davis Cup squads feature great doubles squads, period—and not necessarily one that includes a top singles player.

The U.S. is not a great Davis Cup squad, but thanks to Mike and Bob Bryan, it’s a competitive one. We’d be lost without them.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the tie was Blake’s Day One performance. I guess James didn't realize that this was a buck hunt, because he looked mentally and physically beaten by the time he lost the first two sets. I expected more of him, given the way he had played in New Haven and New York. Instead, he was moping, throwing his racquet, arguing with the umpire and generally looking like a chump.

I know that Davis Cup captain Pat McEnroe had to be peeved about that (this wasn’t the first time that James has underperformed in Cup play). Pat has an image as a nice, low-key guy, and in many ways that’s accurate. But he’s got a tough, realistic side, too. In fact, I think Pat probably winced at the Blake soundbite coming out of Day One: "It was one of those days when he is playing well and he is getting the breaks. Things tend to feel like they are snowballing."

That just doesn't make it. Not at any level.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the No. 2 singles slot is Robby Ginepri’s to lose as of today.

We dodged a bullet. How many more can we duck, given the state of the American game?