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Howdy, and as James Blake woud say, "How you like me now??????"
I caught a surprising amount of the Davis Cup action last night, considering the circumstances (family birthday party with all the trimmings - "away game" no less), buit am still looking forward to reading Steve Tignor's deep take over at Concrete Elbow. Meanwhile, here are some of my random thoughts on yesterday's action:
I thought Dmitry Tursunov was not really ready to play last night; he seemed passive and, at least on televsion, he did not look very confident or comfortable. In Davis Cup, whether home or away but most especially away, it's an enormous asset to act like you own that court, either with a punk-walk or a regal, Federer-esque slouch. Dmitry looked a little like a guy in the Wal-Mart parking lot who forget where he parked the KIA; then he wandered up to the service notch looking as if he were thinking: Hmmm. . . this is kind of nuts, but hail - let's see what happens. . .
What happened was: Andy Roddick stepped up and played exactly the kind of match he is know for in Davis Cup, and to which his game is suited. He took command of the court (and this is so important in that chaotic and noisy crucible of DC), and he used his best weapons in the most straightforward and guileless fashion - he was Roger Clemens, coming at you with the fastball, and to hail with all the split-fingered or knuckle-grip garbage. For my part, I was happy to see a demonstration of serve-based tennis, and the kind of logic and structure it imposes on a match. And Andy was danged lucky he had that serve to protect his game when he missed so many break-point opportunities against Tursunov in the first half of the match.
Andy showed great poise (the biggest danger for him, going in, was being over-pumped, and exploding right before our eyes in a supernova of monster forehand errors and scorching double faults). It happens, you know. But he showed just the right emotional timbre and modulated self-control that the occasion demanded.
As for Blake, well, for some strange reason, probably having to do with the fashionably-blue court and his style, I kept thinking I was watching a hockey game, with the bald dude in the red Willie Nelson bandana dinging the pipes left and right. And at times Blake played those pipes like wind-chimes (somebody remind me to describe a Texas Wind Chime sometime). Blake, like Roddick, seemed well-prepared, emotionally, for what the night would bring. He did not play above his head, or produce lucky, one-off Davis Cup gem. His performance was balanced and in some ways typical, in the bad bits as well as the good.
When Blake broke Youzhny in the third set to serve for it at 5-4, he had to confront his history as a player, warts and all. He kissed the warts on the nose, playing a horrible match-game to let Youzhny back into the contest. But then, like a man who has faced the worst in himself and vowed not to allow it to define him, he kept his poise and focus admirably. That hiccup at such a critical moment suggests that Blake hasn't resolved all his issues yet, but he is getting better at damage control.
But all in all, it was a fine performance under very dificult circumstances, because one of the great underlying motifs of this Davis Cup final was that the pressure was all on the US. So far so good. Today, the Bryans face a wonderful opportunity to clinch the Cup for the US. You can call and/or comment on th doubles here, and I'll be back tomorrow.
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