Patriot Games

Going into the U.S.-Australia Davis Cup tie, I was highly ambivalent. Nothing in sports thrills me more than the Aussie tennis mystique. Here in America, tennis is far too committed to hierarchy and individualism. But in Australia, they’ve managed to treat tennis the way we approach softball: an inclusive, fun, gregarious activity that involves rooting for your mates and playing hard. No Aussie ever considered tennis a “sissy” sport. And nowhere, of course, is that Aussie sense of comrades-in-arms more vividly displayed than during Davis Cup.

But on the other hand, the connection between patriotism and sports has always made me queasy. I’ve got no problem with Aussies cheering each other on, but somehow, in America, that connection between national identity and athletic achievement smacks of political expedience and pathetic jingoism. My feeling is that you prove you’re an American every day in dozens of little interactions and manners. Surely you can’t tell me that Jim Courier is more of an American than me because he’s “serving” his country by making money to play tennis? I’m sorry, I just don’t buy it. 

In Australia, they’ve managed to treat tennis as an inclusive, fun, gregarious activity that involves rooting for your mates and playing hard. 

When you start thinking your country is better than another simply because of some athletic contest, that makes me start thinking of Nuremberg rallies, goose-stepping, missiles on parade, coercive comrades and the kind of attitudes that put up unnecessary barriers between people. In Davis Cup, for example, it’s a lot of crap to hear about countries installing indoor clay courts just to get an advantage -- it ain’t much different from hearing about league teams that encourage higher-ranked players to lower their NTRP ratings, or juggle their lineups or judiciously throw matches.

That said, tennis is wonderful as a team sport. Loneliness is one reason why I believe tennis is such an isolated subculture of a sport, a glorious activity that’s unable to harness its gifts into kind of collective success. So that was my attitude going into the US-Australia Davis Cup tie. And all my ambivalence was sadly confirmed by the events of that weekend at the Longwood Cricket Club. 

It was glorious, for example, to see dozens of former U.S. Davis Cup players on hand for a gala banquet. Going as far back as 1931 Wimbledon champ Sidney Wood, stretching into the pantheon of Don Budge and Jack Kramer, and also including all the great players of the past who’ve made Cup contributions -- Tony Trabert, Vic Seixas, Dennis Ralston, Tut Bartzen, my TennisOne colleague Allen Fox, Art Larsen, Tom Brown, Marty Riessen, Clark Graebner, Donald Dell, Barry MacKay and so many, many more who’ve built the history of the tennis community. The day after the banquet, a dozen of these all-timers took three of Longwood’s courts and played doubles. It was a delightful sight to see how well they played and how much they enjoyed each other. But I also noted that the connection between them had less to do with American patriotism and more to do with the friendly form of combat they’d engaged in all over the world. Nationalism had little to do with it.

But then, on the contemporary front, the inept way in which the American team performed validated all my concerns about the muckiness of Davis Cup. I’ll just tick off how I see it: 

1. Jim Courier is a bully. Months ago, by saying he didn’t want any latecomers to the U.S. Davis Cup team, he created a hostile, noinclusive climate. The reality of contemporary tennis is that not every player can or will commit to every tie. Had Courier thought more, he might have recalled 1973, when no less a player than Ken Rosewall stepped aside so that Rod Laver could take his place for the Aussies’ final round match against the U.S. I’m not saying Courier should have taken himself out of singles. The best lineup would have had Courier and Sampras in singles. And disparage dead rubbers all you like, but Courier was also a jerk for skipping out on that last one with an alleged injury. I wonder how hurt he’d have been if the match had counted. People paid money to see him play.  
2. Tom Gullikson is a wienie. No question, he’s the guy in the middle, an eminently likeable fellow who in this case spent too much time engaging in consensus management when the situation called for leadership. Once it became clear that Pete Sampras wanted to play, Gully should have said, “OK, you’re going to play, and you’re going to play singles, you 12-time Grand Slam champ, you. I’ll make sure we work this out with Courier and Martin.” Over the course of the weekend, he somehow undermined Martin and diminished Patrick Rafter by muddling the Aussie’s clinching win with all this talk of injuries. Disgraceful.  
3. Sampras is a wienie. He’s a champion, and champions step up. He should have told Gullikson, “I’m going to play. Send me in and I’ll kill that Rafter.” Otherwise, he shouldn’t have volunteered strictly to play doubles. 

It figures, naturally, that the ultimate wienie of a president, George Bush, was on hand at Longwood. While it’s true that Bush is a genuine tennis lover. the irony of it all was strong. Surely, Bush felt Gullikson’s pain. 

Martin fought hard but may have been the big victim of the weekend

What was sad was that all this politicking took away from the tennis -- and isn’t the on court action the whole idea, anyway? But that always gets obscured in America. Whenever the U.S. Davis Cup team suffers one of its losses, I’m always reminded of the Vietnam War: the massive empire, uncertain of the objective, felled by a focused guerrilla cadre. “You Yanks, you take it so seriously you end up brooding when it’s really nothing more than a tennis match,” says Aussie legend Fred Stolle. Indeed, the American compulsion to be number one might make us pretty good at leading U.N. delegations, and even better at building an economy, but maybe all that is a little too much in sports.   

At this point, my belief is that the American Davis Cup leadership problem is so profound that the USTA might as well hand the job to John McEnroe. I’ve always opposed McEnroe in this job, resenting his passive-aggressive form of campaigning and also believing that his horrible temper disqualifies him from what’s also a diplomatic post. But now, I figure, it’s so screwed up he should be given the wheel. Fix it, John -- you be the man.    

And yet, for all that silliness, there was something marvelous about the weekend -- the attentive exuberance of Davis Cup rookie Lleyton Hewitt, the shotmaking Sampras brought to the doubles, the hardfought efforts of Martin (who to me was the big victim of the weekend), the desire of Courier and the incredible fighting spirit of Rafter. The intramural contest was great. If only there was a way to chill out the flag waving. 

Oakland-based Joel Drucker has been involved in tennis for many years as a player and writer. He’s written extensively about the game for such publications as Tennis Magazine, HBO Sports and Biography Magazine. He also served as the technical editor on Patrick McEnroe’s book, Tennis For Dummies. For TennisOne, Joel will be writing regularly for TennisONE about the pro tennis circuit. 

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