2006 Davis Cup: pressure drop

“I lost the sense of the ball. I was thinking, how can I play tennis possibly?”

Yesterday in Moscow it was David Nalbandian who crumpled under the pressure of carrying Argentina to a Davis Cup title. He had troubling serving and returning in the doubles match and, as you can imagine, that made it rather difficult to win. Nalbandian and Agustin Calleri lost to Marat Safin and Dmitry Tursunov as Russia went up two matches to one. Nikolay Davydenko did not have to carry Russia to the title this weekend, he has capable teammates, but today he could have clinched the title with a victory and he was crumpling under the pressure too.

Davydenko double faulted and made some errors to go down a break in the fourth game of the first set. He had another double fault and gave up a second break of serve and that was that, the first set belonged to Nalbandian and Argentina.

Nalbandian was no doubt very pissed off that he performed so poorly yesterday. He couldn’t win the Cup title today but he could avoid being blamed for the loss, a fate he would certainly have suffered if he let Davydenko beat him.

Nalbandian versus Davydenko matched power against speed. If Nalbandian is on his game, and thankfully for the Argentines he was, his power should push Davydenko around the court. Hindsight is never wrong because you always know the result but it’s fair to ask whether Russian captain Shamil Tarpishchev might have been better sending Dmitry Tursunov onto the court against Nalbandian. Tursunov was punishing the ball yesterday, I’m surprised a few balls didn’t burst in midair. I can see why Tarpishchev played Davydenko, it’s insulting to sit down the third ranked player in the world especially when he won the first match for you, but he wasn’t the best match for Nalbandian’s power and Tursunov beat Andy Roddick in the semifinals to put Russia in the finals so he might also have been better at dealing with the pressure.

In the second set Davydenko double faulted a fourth and a fifth time, both times losing his serve. Do you detect a pattern here? Nalbandian now had the first two sets. In case you’re not convinced that it was the pressure that led to all of those double faults, listen to what Davydenko said after the match:

I felt like my muscles wouldn’t obey me. I lost the sense of the ball. I was thinking, how can I play tennis possibly?

Davydenko finally calmed down long enough to get a break and take the third set and now the match was looking like a contest. Each player got two breaks in the fourth set until Davydenko’s error-prone ways returned and Nalbandian broke him one more time and it was all over. Russia now had to depend on the decidedly unpredictable Marat Safin to win or lose the Davis Cup.

Safin’s opponent was Jose Acasuso who’d beaten him two out of their three meetings. Acasuso was also nervous and lost his first service game but he was pretty solid after that. That break gave Safin the first set but in the second set, Safin got a bit discombobulated and lost his serve to go down 2-4 and the Argentines exploded.

I love Davis Cup. The French will yell for a French player at the French Open and Americans will yell for an American player at the U.S. Open but this is different. Every point is a cause for celebration. Even an opponent’s service fault gets a big whoop. You’re allowed to cheer for your country’s player at a slam but its poor form to overdo it.]Here you can act like a complete idiot every time your player wins a point and it’s perfectly o.k., in fact it’s expected.

The Russians weren’t whooping it up as much as they were desperately hoping Safin could hold his temper at bay well enough to stay in this match knowing full well that he’d totally failed to do so on Friday. He’d even yelled at his coach, Tarpishchev. He didn’t lose his temper just yet but Acasuso had evened the match at one set all.

I’ll tell you another thing I like about Davis Cup: on court coaching. Safin’s job was to take advantage of the fast surface and get to the net on his serve. He failed to do that in the second set and that sank him. He was also having trouble with Acasuso’s serve. Safin could have solved those problems by himself but it’s also likely that Tarpishchev told him to attack on his serve and move further back to return serve because Safin broke Acasuso after a long battle to go up 2-0 in the third set.

Up 4-1 Safin came to the net again for the best point of the weekend. Acasuso hit a passing shot that Safin sliced barely over the net. Acasuso flashed to the ball to hit and hit an approach shot but Safin anticipated the direction and lobbed the ball over his head. Acasuso got to it and hit the first lob I’ve ever seen seen hit between the legs. Safin responded with a weak overhead – he may have been as surprised as I was – and Acasuso came to the net where he sliced a ball down the line out of Safin’s reach. Wow, that was worth a trip to Moscow.

After exchanging breaks, Safin served out the set and Russia was up two sets to one. The Russian crowd was now more comfortable because Safin was holding emotionally steady and the two players settled in for a fourth set that was uneventful and went to a tiebreaker.

Safin went up a mini-break at 3-1 with a killer shot down the line. Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin was shaking his fist and the crowd was ecstatic. A service winner put Safin up 5-2 then an ace gave him championship point at 6-4. Two points later Safin had done it, Russia had its second Davis Cup. Safin’s teammates mobbed him and threw him up in the air. Acasuso’s teammates surrounded him as he sat on his chair completely disconsolate.

I’d like to think that this could be a notable turning point for Safin. I certainly don’t expect him to turn into the Buddha-like Roger Federer on court but winning a Davis Cup for your country by keeping your cool could be big enough to smooth out, just the slightest bit, even the most intractable temperament.

It’s worth noting that there were no international incidents in this match because this was the first Davis Cup with Hawkeye technology. The most obvious way to cheat a visiting team has been removed. What’s left? I remember when fans in Rome used to pitch pennies at foreign players. And I suppose someone could hack the Hawkeye computer system so it malfunctions. If the ATP approves on court coaching we could have fights between coaches and opposing players. Argentina’s coach Alberto Mancini was mad at Safin for challenging an obviously good ace and the two of them went at it for a bit.

If the ATP takes away some of the emotion by automating line calling, they’ve got to put it back somewhere else. Let’s put a coach on the bench and while we’re at it, the player’s personal trainer and his agent. It’ll look like the bench at a basketball game or the sideline at a football game and it’ll have that team feeling that I love so much about Davis Cup.