The first three rubbers in the Davis Cup tie between the U.S. and France each had a surprise.

I’ve been lying in bed with a twisted vertebra and none to happy about it. Using my arms is uncomfortable so I haven’t been keeping up with all of your comments and I’m unhappy about that too. And I think I’d rather go on a fast than eat one more rye cracker with tuna. Anyone available to come over to my house and make me a meal? Meanwhile, Davis Cup is here.

In the world of the NBA, Kobe Bryant is playing with a torn ligament in his pinky, Derek Fisher is playing with a partially torn tendon in his foot, Pau Gasol is playing with plantar fascitis because he came back from a sprained ankle too soon, and Dirk Nowitzki returned 11 days after suffering a gruesome leg injury. And Richard Gasquet can’t play first day singles in Davis Cup because he has blisters? At first I thought the blisters were on his feet and I wondered if he’d run a marathon between his second round exit in Miami and Friday, but it turns out the blisters are on his hand. Maybe he ran it on his hands.

Gasquet’s absence is especially surprising as his team desperately needs him after Jo-Wilfried Tsonga bowed out with a knee injury. Instead, Roddick gets to play Michael Llodra. Llodra is one of the few guys on tour with two victories this year so it might seem like it’s not so bad but it is: Roddick also has two titles and Llodra hasn’t won a match since the end of February.

The court surface in Winston Salem, North Carolina, is a fast indoor court. Llodra is a serve and volleyer and Roddick has an average return of serve so this match was closer than expected.

After winning the first set 6-4, Roddick found himself at 4-4 in the second set when he hit an ugly but effective backhand passing shot from deep in the corner. He kind of flicked at the ball like he was getting rid of a pesky fly, still, it’s not a shot he’s known for and I guess it’s time to ask the question: Is Roddick experiencing a career resurgence or an isolated peak similar to David Nalbandian’s consecutive Masters wins late last year?

Roddick turns up in name only at the clay court Masters Series events so the answer to that question will come when we get to Wimbledon and the U.S. summer hard court season. If he does well at Wimbledon and gets a title or two in the summer, it’s a resurgence. If not, it’s a peak. One quick note. The Tennis Channel Open has been sold to the ATP so they can relocate it elsewhere – meaning outside the U.S. There goes another stop on the U.S. tennis court circuit which is shrinking as we speak.

For the first time in Davis Cup history, the Davis Cup champions received championship rings. The U.S. won the Davis Cup last year and the USTA honored the team with a ceremony before the opening match handing out 14 carat gold bejeweled rings.

In the second set tiebreaker, the chair umpire overruled an out call on a Roddick serve that wasn’t obviously out. That call was the turning point as Roddick won the last six points of the tiebreaker to go up two sets to none. They don’t have Hawkeye at Davis Cup? Wasn’t Hawkeye developed precisely for situations like this: preventing bad calls against visiting teams? If it’s a matter of money, maybe the USTA could melt down those bejeweled rings and trade them in for a Hawkeye setup. I hear gold is valuable at the moment.

Llodra did not play badly. He lost in straight sets by the score of 6-4, 7-6(3), 7-6(5). There was only one break in the entire match and, as you can see, the last two sets went to tiebreaker. Llodra had the misfortune of being thrown into the lion’s pit on a slick surface against a big server who had home court advantage.

Next up were James Blake and Paul-Henri Mathieu. Mathieu served lights out in the first set but Blake kept pace to get to the tiebreaker where that well-known concept known as pressure reared its head. Blake went up 5-0 in the tiebreaker with some well-timed winners and Mathieu hit a double fault to go down 6-0.

Davis Cup is a different kind of animal. Your heart should swell when you play for your county and that lifts many a player from mediocrity to excellence. Marat Safin has lost his first match in four tournaments this year, yet there he was beating Tomas Berdych in five sets on Friday. Safin will also play the last, and possibly deciding, singles match. He could be a Davis Cup hero for Russia yet again.

Sometimes, though, you end up being the goat. Mathieu lost the fifth and deciding rubber to Mikhail Youzhny in 2002 and it was a crushing defeat because he was up two sets to none in front of his home crowd and that match gave Russia the 2002 Davis Cup title. Many people think it set his career back a few years and it looks like it did.

Mathieu resurrected himself and took the next five points in the first set tiebreaker but it wasn’t enough to win it. In the second set tiebreaker, though, it was a different story. Blake managed to win a total of three points. You weren’t expecting a lot of breaks of serve were you, because this court played like an ice-skating rink. Any decent first serve was good enough to hold serve most of the time. We didn’t see a deuce point till 2-2 in the second set.

By the way, Mathieu is currently ranked number 12 and that’s a bit surprising. He’s never gone past the fourth round in a Masters Series event and only gone past the fourth round in one slam. It means he’s playing consistent tennis but it also means a lot of other players are faltering. One other comment while I think of it: doesn’t Blake’s grunt sound like the closed thing to sex in the world of tennis? Shrieking is like screaming but that deep, rumbling grunt followed by the smack of the racket on the ball kinda turns me on.

Both players got a bit tired in the third set and Mathieu hit three straight errors to lose his serve which was enough to lose the set. Mathieu hit a scorching return to break Blake at 2-1 in the fourth set which was also enough to win the set and now we were in danger territory. We worry for Blake in slams and Davis Cup because his five set record is 2-10.

Uh oh, Blake hit two errors in the first game and he was down a break right away. Mathieu had been annoying Blake all match by pumping his fist and loudly yelling out Vamos! Did he forget he was French? Blake gets easily annoyed by his opponent’s behavior and that’s a problem. The saving grace here is Mathieu’s aforementioned uncomfortable relationship with pressure.

Actually, neither player is comfortable with pressure and the fifth set was a seesaw battle to see who could keep themselves from falling apart rather than taking over. Blake lost his serve again and found himself facing two match points at 5-4. He managed to win that game and then break Mathieu two games later to win the rubber by the score of 7-6(5), 6-7(3), 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.

There were three surprises in the first two days of this Davis Cup tie: Llodra turning up instead of Gasquet, Blake won a five set match, and the doubles. Mike and Bob Bryan had a 14-1 Davis Cup doubles record coming in but they were facing Llodra and Arnaud Clement – a top ten doubles team and the only grand slam winners the Bryans have ever faced in Davis Cup.

After the Bryans won the first set tiebreaker, Llodra and Clement got a break of serve in the next three sets to win the third rubber, 7-6(7), 7-5, 6-3, 6-4. The U.S. now needs to win one more rubber to move on to the semifinals and I’d be very surprised if there were any more surprises.