If the chance to become a national hero isn’t motivation enough, what is?

I don’t usually watch many doubles matches because they’re seldom important but today was an exception. Russia and Argentina were tied at 1-1 after the first day of the Davis Cup final at Olympic Stadium in Moscow. Whoever won today would need only one of tomorrow’s reverse singles matches to take the Davis Cup title..

Davis Cup doubles is curious. It’s the exceptional country that has two top level doubles players – the U.S. is the only country I can think of at the moment and the Bryan Brothers are twins, not much chance of them having been born in separate countries. So most Davis Cup doubles teams are made up of top level singles players who seldom play doubles except for Davis Cup..

You gotta hand it to the Argentine fans. They traveled to the other side of the world for this tie and the match felt like an indoor soccer game. Lines of blue and white striped shirts sang and moved side to side in alternating waves joined by the biggest Argentine sports figure of them all: soccer god Diego Maradona. Can you imagine Michael Jordan or LeBron James turning up at a Davis Cup match, even a final? Okay, Tiger Woods came to the U.S. Open but that was a slam and he wasn’t there to root on Andy Roddick, he sat in Roger Federer’s box. Not very patriotic of him.

Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin, retired tennis player Yevgeni Kafelnikov, and former International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch – lots of retired people, certainly, but celebrities nonetheless – joined the other Davis Cup crazies in the crowd.

Argentines Agustin Calleri and David Nalbandian are two broad and big dudes. Not necessarily the best thing for doubles where quick movement is crucial, though it doesn’t seem to affect top doubles specialist Max Mirnyi, what is he, 6’ 5”? Russian Marat Safin is not tiny either, he towered over his doubles partner Dmitry Tursunov, but it was Tursunov who provided the firepower. You don’t have move around the court nimbly if you can hammer a first serve and produce return errors. It also helps that Tursunov is an exception to the singles only crowd, he’s actually ranked number 57 in doubles.

Maradona is a legend for a reason. Under the pressure of performing on the biggest sports stage in the world, he led Argentina to a World Cup. Nalbandian has the opportunity to do something similar. He won his first singles match by beating Safin easily yesterday and if Argentina wins today and Nalbandian can take his singles match tomorrow, Nalbandian can lead Argentina to its first Davis Cup title and become an instant national hero.

Nalbandian is hard to get a handle on. He can be very funny, check out his musical performance on this video to see for yourself, and I’ve seen him be very personable on interview shows. But he doesn’t really tell you anything about what goes on inside him. If you ask him what makes him go, he says something hopelessly general like this:

For me, it’s all about motivation. When I’m motivated, everything seems possible.

Nalbandian is actually harder to figure out than that other enigma across the net in today’s doubles match: Marat Safin. Safin is merely and totally unpredictable. He lost him temper during his loss to Nalbandian yesterday and had a few cross words for his coach, Shamil Tarpishchev. Safin doesn’t seem to have that part of the brain that inhibits inappropriate behavior. He apologized afterwards but he also said that his coach “should understand me” as if to say: that’s just how I am and there’s nothing to be done about it. As a result, you might get a brilliant match from Safin or a brilliant mess. If the conditions are to his liking – Russia chose the surface but Safin complained that it was too slow and the practice surface too dissimilar – and his game is working, he’s a top five player and can win slams – he has two so far. If not, watch out, because if the ATP ever legalizes on court coaching, Safin might find it difficult to find a coach who’d be willing to come down to the court and sit next to him. Who knows what could happen?

Having said that, I have never questioned Safin’s desire and it’s not that I question Nalbandian’s desire, it’s just that I don’t know what it is. Why does he play tennis? What does he dream about? What drives him?

Whatever it is, it wasn’t enough to overcome the pressure he must have felt. After performing exceptionally well yesterday, Nalbandian returned poorly and lost his serve twice in the first set to let the Russians get out to a one set lead. He lost his serve again in the second set as Tursunov and Safin won the match easily, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4.

As Safin said after the match, “”He just didn’t motivate himself enough.” If the chance to become a national hero isn’t motivation enough, what is?

Russia needs only one more match to win the title but it’s not over yet. UCLA stunned USC in U.S. college football today. Anything can happen in the world of sports. First up tomorrow will be the best match up so far: Nalbandian and Davydenko. Nalbandian leads the series 4-2, has won the last three matches and beat Davydenko on carpet at the 2002 Tennis Masters Cup. And Davydenko has been fading towards the end of matches lately. I can’t imagine getting married last week could have helped his conditioning. Marriage ceremonies are notoriously stressful affairs. It could be up to Safin – who is scheduled to play Chela if Davydenko loses – to win or lose the Davis Cup.

2006 Davis Cup Final: I could have predicted that.
2006 Davis Cup: From Russia with Love