On the first weekend of December, Serbia and France will meet in Belgrade Arena for a showdown to determine the winner of 2010 Davis Cup. Serbia has yet to win Davis Cup; France has won it in 2001. While Serbia will have the advantage of playing at home in front of 16,000-plus fans and profit from the services of the world's number two player Novak Djokovic, France will arrive to the tie having shown time and time again that they are not to be counted out in Davis Cup.
That spirit of being able to pull victories from an unlikely position is the trademark of their captain Guy Forget, who is likely to bring back some bad memories for American tennis fans when, as a player, he and teammate Henri Leconte pulled a monumental upset in the finals of Davis Cup in 1991 over the American team composed of Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, and the doubles tandem of Ken Flach and Robert Seguso. This year, Forget is the captain and the driving force behind his team's persistent march to the finals.
Forget calls the conquest of the Davis Cup trophy, referred to as "Le Saladier" (the Salad Bowl) by the French, "a common project, above all a common dream" of the French Davis Cup team. This little phrase that he murmured 10 days ago during an interview to a French publication sums up efficiently the success of the French Davis Cup in reaching the finals, as well as Forget's formula for that success as a captain.
While it's true that the French have enjoyed the friendship of fortune by playing every match at home so far and by Rafael Nadal being absent from the quarterfinals tie against Spain, to say that Forget and his boys have been lucky is simply inaccurate. Spain still had a remarkable team with Fernando Verdasco, David Ferrer, and Feliciano Lopez and Forget did not have his best guns available in singles. Furthermore, Forget has had roadblocks himself on the way to the finals, one of them being that he has had neither his best singles players, nor his best doubles team available for every outing. In other words, he has had to scramble, too, yet he seemed to make the right decisions at every turn.
Gaël Monfils has been there for every match, but the two other former top-10 players, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon, have been hampered by injuries and the usually-reliable doubles player Julien Benneteau was missing against Argentina in the semifinal tie. Richard Gasquet, enjoying his first full trouble-free season on the tour in a while, only gained his form in the summer of 2010; as a result, he has yet to be selected to the team. Forget persevered, managed to squeeze maximum mileage out of serve-and-volleyer Michael Llodra in singles, as well as doubles, and even received an unlikely push from the 32-year-old and clearly past-his-prime Arnaud Clement to replace Benneteau and step in with Llodra for a clinching doubles win against Argentina in the semifinals.
Forget's "common dream" motto is evidently contagious. Benneteau said to the French newspaper Le Monde, "winning [the] Davis Cup, it's not done with four players, but with a group of 6-7 players who give everything they have." Clement said after winning the tie-clinching doubles match that it was less special to win that match than seeing all his teammates cheering him during the match because "it's those guys who have qualified France for the semifinals". All the top French players, whether selected or not, have been present during each Davis Cup encounter to enforce that feeling of unity. However, to understand the interaction between Forget and the players, one must look beyond the stories of the match weekends.
Fresh from the joy and celebration of victory, the same Sunday that France closed out the semifinal victory on September 19th, Forget was already working out the details of his scheduling for the next two months in preparation for the finals in Serbia. When asked if he was tired, he replied that it was the "good kind" of fatigue and gave signals of what is already occupying his mind: resolving the doubles situation, choosing the best possible pair in view of the possibility of Benneteau's injury lingering on, and taking on, with Lionel Roux from his coaching team, a full traveling schedule to attend the upcoming tournaments in Asia and in Europe throughout October and November, in order to see up-close the progress of the players.
If everyone is healthy by the end of November, Forget will have plenty of options, despite lacking a big star like Novak Djokovic on the Serbian side. Is that a good problem to have? Benneteau said tongue-in-cheek that, "Guy will have a headache." However, it would seem that Forget's decision will be respected by the players that certainly enjoy having a Davis Cup captain who seems to be fully engaged in the cause and always present at every tournament in every corner of the world for no reason other than the success of the French players in mind.
The impressive thing about Forget's ability to form a unity and to center the focus of the team on the conquest of the trophy is that he has not necessarily gotten help from the French fans and media at every level. While the crowds during the matches remain a force to be reckoned (should we expect anything less, in all honesty?), Forget's every decision and move is scrutinized by the French media, always ready for an emblematic phrase to attract attention. Let us not forget that tennis remains stunningly popular in France, so most tennis-related news occupies central spots in the news.
Even when he is "thinking" of something, Forget faces a barrage of commentaries and questions, as was the case in 2009 when he mentioned that he talked to Yannick Noah about coming back to help with the Davis Cup team. Why would he do that? Is he out of touch? Is he afraid of winning? This is just one example.
And then there are those who are ready to attack the players for anything other than their tennis-related activities. Richard Gasquet has been called a "druggie," some of the others, as well as Gasquet, have been labeled a "loser" (the term adapted from English with a French accent: "loos-ehrr") at various times for letting matches escape them, and even the whole team has been disowned by some fans and called the "Swiss Davis Cup Team" (Forget himself and every member of the French Davis Cup Team this year resides in Switzerland, except Llodra). Known for being a level-headed personality who thinks twice before reacting, Forget always remained above this level by focusing on the team's unity.
On paper, Serbia is the favorite to win the tie. Djokovic will be clearly the best player on that weekend and Janko Tipsarevic has become the Davis Cup hero for Serbia following his crucial victories over Thomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek to lift Serbia over Czech Republic 3-2 in the semifinals. So it is very possible that France could end on the short end and Forget could hear it from all the so-called "experts." But I have little doubt that if France wins the "Salad Bowl," Forget will give most of the credit to his players and others, although he may well deserve it himself.
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