One Player Can Make the Difference

Argentina and Spain are getting ready to battle each other in for the Davis Cup title. Whether it's due to the visible excitement of the team spirit that the competition evokes or to past experiences of personal nature, the Davis Cup has always kept a special spot in my heart, as a fan, spectator, coach, and a past player. Therefore, I was enjoying reading different predictions for the title match, speculations on how much Rafael Nadal's absence would play a role on the encounter, etc.

Usually during my reading of Davis Cup competition, my mind starts drifting away to various thoughts involving the Davis Cup and the nature of the tie. Does one player really mean that much to a team? How about the long five-set matches in three days? What about the importance of the surface? This time around, probably because of Nadal's missing of this important tie, I seemed to get stuck in the first question more than usual.

I could not help but remember Bjorn Borg immediately. At the age of 19, he led his country, Sweden, to its first Davis Cup title, virtually single-handed. Sweden went on to win Davis Cup six more times since 1975, including one final against the USA that was built up to be a thriller, but thanks to the antics of John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, turned out to be a walk in the park for the Swedes. But none was more enigmatic than Sweden's first march to the title in 1975, when a young Borg, breaking Bill Tilden's record 50-plus-year-old record of 18 straight singles matches victories, won three points for Sweden in each tie, carrying the rest of the team on his shoulders to the ultimate victory against Czechoslovakia.

Then I remembered how I watched, in person, John McEnroe dissect the French Davis Cup Team led by Yannick Noah and Henri Leconte in 1982, on red clay, in front of a hostile crowd in Grenoble, France. In the opening match, he beat Yannick Noah in a five-set thriller to deflate the crowd, then the next day in doubles, put on the finishing touch by beating the best two players that France had to offer on their best surface in doubles, teaming up with Peter Fleming. Let's be realistic about Fleming's role. Remember the famous answer to the question "Who is the best doubles tandem ever?” It was "McEnroe and anybody."

Ironically, McEnroe's performance against France that year is hardly mentioned nowadays because it is obscured by an even more amazing performance by him the same year in an earlier round of the Davis Cup. It happened when he led his team to a 3-2 victory against Sweden, winning his doubles match, and his two singles matches, including a record-setting six hours and 22 minutes long match against Mats Wilander.

Then I remembered, Boris Becker, who in 1988 and 1989 helped Germany capture its first two Davis Cup titles with little-to-no help from his teammates. Like McEnroe and Borg in the earlier examples, he participated in both singles and doubles, collecting the usual three points in each tie, with the exception of only one time in two years.

My thoughts came back to today, back to the articles that I was reading. With all due respect to Rafael Nadal, clearly the best player in the world in 2008, he does not mean to his team as much as Borg did to his Swedish team in 1975, McEnroe to his team in 1982, or Becker to the German team in 1988 and '89.

Last, but not the least, I thought about Roger Federer's decision to play in the Davis Cup for Switzerland in 2009. He would have to win all three of his matches for his country to defeat the Americans. And if Switzerland wants to even start dreaming about the Davis Cup title, he would have to continue winning three matches per tie, à la McEnroe, Borg, and Becker. But let's limit the discussion to this tie against USA. Without Federer, Switzerland would not stand a chance against USA. With him, they have a legitimate chance to win two singles matches, and add a doubles victory thanks to Federer and Stanislas Wavrinka, the reigning gold-metal Olympic team.

Federer has done it to the Americans once before, without any help in the form of another top-20 player like Wawrinka and prior to becoming the great player of today. Let's turn the clock back about seven years and look at the last time Switzerland played the USA in the Davis Cup. Lo and behold, a 19-years-old Roger Federer, at this point never having gone past the fourth round in any slams, led the Swiss team to a 3-2 upset victory against the USA team, making Patrick McEnroe's first experience as the Davis Cup captain, a very bitter pill to swallow.

After all this talk, I am ready for next weekend's promising final between Argentina and Spain, even without Nadal. Equally, I am looking forward to the first rounds of next year already, especially the USA vs. Switzerland match. The Davis Cup's spirited atmosphere — there is no competition like it!