The first round of the Davis Cup gave a spark of life to a stretch of the tennis calendar otherwise marked by events of limited importance scattered around the globe. This week we take a look at Davis Cup, and two of the intriguing -- for very different reasons! -- matchups. We will also reflect on the ITF?s challenge to the competence of the ATP and WTA to organize, well, those events of limited importance scattered around the globe?
Davis Cup
As they usually do, the eight confrontations in the first round of Davis Cup featured a mixture of blowout wins and gripping ties that went the limit.
The biggest blowout of all -- Australia?s 4-1 trouncing of Great Britain -- would
have been a lot more interesting had Britain?s top duo of Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski not been injured.
Instead, the woeful inability of Britain to produce acceptable pro players was on full display.
The Brits trotted out 21-year-old Alan Mackin and teenager Alex Bogdanovic, with a combined ranking of 788,
as their singles players. Predictably, the ace Australian pair of Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Philippoussis
took care of the overmatched youngsters in straight sets.
While we suspect that the bold Mackin will now return to the anonymity of the minor league circuit for the
foreseeable future, we might see a lot more of Bogdanovic in a few years.
The son of Yugoslavian refugees, who defeated Aussie veteran Todd Woodbridge in a dead rubber, is a well-schooled,
slick player whose one-handed backhand has been (probably optimistically) compared to that of Vilas and Laver.
For dramatics, we should probably look to Ostrava, where the Czech Republic figured to mount a stern challenge to the defending champions from Russia. The Russians were handicapped by the absence of Marat Safin (wrist injury), as well as the fact that veteran stalwart Yevgeny Kafelnikov is still not in top shape following off-season varicose vein surgery. Mikhail Youzhny, the 20-year-old who was the surprise hero of the dramatic final win over France last year as a late substitute for Kafelnikov, suddenly
found himself as his country?s number one singles player against Jiri Novak and the solid Czechs.
After the Russians assumed a 2-1 lead thanks to a five-set doubles win, the stage was set for a Youzhny-Novak showdown. But Youzhny had become ill, and Novak made short work of the unprepared substitute -- ironically, Kafelnikov -- to force the fifth and deciding rubber. The scenario was eerily similar to the decisive match in last year?s final between untested youngsters Youzhny and Paul-Henri Mathieu, except this time it was Russia?s young Nikolay Davydenko who was thrown into the cauldron against rapi
dly-improving 24-year-old Radek Stepanek.
Once again Russia came up with the dramatic, clinching win, as 21-year-old Davydenko overcame a disastrous start to subdue Stepanek, 1-6 7-6(4) 6-2 3-6 6-0. Russia had dodged a bullet in its Davis Cup defence, but will surely need to have its best elements healthy in April if they hope to defeat their next opponents, Argentina, in South America.
ITF-ATP feud breaks wide open
As recently as the 1980s, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) had been openly feuding with the governing body of the men?s tour, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). In recent years the rival associations have in general been reasonably cooperative, if at times uneasy, bedfellows.
However, it is now clear that the ITF has grown extremely impatient with the way in which both the ATP and its distaff counterpart, the Women?s Tennis Association (WTA), run their respective tours.
At the heart of the ITF?s concerns is the chaotic and overly long tournament schedule. At the Australian Open, the associations met in an attempt to work out a shorter and more rational tournament calendar, but the meetings were inconclusive. The Times of London reported that the ITF came with demands to structure the tour events around the Grand Slams (which are under ITF jurisdiction). ?[The ITF] has drawn up a blueprint for the schedule to become the framework of the structure from 2007,? repor
ted the Times. They have, in essence, given tennis four years to sort itself out.?
During the recent Open Gaz de France women?s tournament in Paris, Christian Bīmes, the president of the French tennis federation and an ITF bigwig, turned up the rhetorical heat on the ATP and WTA, focusing particularly on the ATP. "The players are no longer on the same wavelength as the ATP,? Bīmes told the French media. ?They have hired lawyers to look at the possibility of a different structure. The ATP should return to its role, namely, looking after the players and not marketing.?
It is true that the ITF can point to its Grand Slam events as unqualified commercial and sporting successes. However, when one looks at the other major events organized by the ITF, the Davis Cup and Fed Cup competitions, one is permitted to doubt that the ITF could do a much better job than the ATP and WTA of organizing the rest of the tennis calendar. The Davis Cup is an exciting competition, but is under-publicized, awkward, and very difficult for casual fans to follow or understand. And the ITF?s wome
n?s team competition, the Fed Cup? Despite repeated fiddling with the format, the Fed Cup generates a deeper state of apathy each year.
The more we think about it, the more Martina Navratilova?s suggestion for resolving the chaotic governance of tennis makes sense. ?We should blow it up and start all over again,? said the opinionated Navratilova at the Australian Open last month. Don?t expect any cataclysmic explosions any time soon, though. We are in store for a protracted tug of war between tennis?s ?heads of state?, and it?s only just begun.