Wimbledon in the desert

Fernando Gonzalez of Chile beat American James Blake, 6-7(5), 0-6, 7-6(2),6-4, 10-8, in a titanic five set match and Andy Roddick evened the tie at 1-1 by beating Nicolas Massu, 6-3, 7-6(5), 7-6(4), in quarterfinal Davis Cup action.


Welcome to Wimbledon in the desert. It’s time for Davis Cup again and the US is sticking it to Chile by erecting a temporary tennis stadium with a grass court for the three day event. The Chileans are clay court specialists. Five of Fernando Gonzalez’s seven career victories have been on clay. For Nicolas Massu, the number is five out of six.

We’re here at Mission Hills Country Club, the site of last week’s Kraft-Nabisco LPGA major, in Rancho Mirage, California. As I was wandering around the site looking for the media trailer, I ran into Joey English. She was wearing a bright red dress and pointy high heels and was looking for the media trailer because she had been chosen to sing the the National Anthem. I flagged down a golf cart and Joey and I caught a ride to the opening gate. Joey was rushed because she had to get back to her local radio show right after the opening ceremonies. I asked her what she covered on her show. “Everything from Ernest Borgnine to mad cow disease,” she said, “and tennis.”

Mission Hills should consider keeping the grass court stadium. In between Davis Cup matches they could hire a herd of cows to keep the grass groomed. Cows don’t get mad cow disease if they are entirely grass fed.

The ball was out, why was there a replay? Good question.

You never know what’s going to happen in Davis Cup. Patriotic pride can lift a player’s game. They wander around the world most of the year playing for themselves; this is the one time they get to play a team sport. I always enjoy the opening ceremonies because the teams are introduced one-by-one then they run out onto the court and slap their teammates’ hands as if it was a basketball game. It’s not the self-centered game tennis can often be. Chile is not helping my fantasy. For some reason they chose to introduce their captain, Hans Gildemeister, and the player in the first rubber, Fernando Gonzalez, and no one else. No Nicolas Massu, Adrian Garcia or Paul Cadeville. Ms. English was asked not to wear high heels but she didn’t listen, she stilettoed right onto the grass and sang her song.

Gonzalez played James Blake in the first rubber and Gonzalez had a plan. He repeatedly hit short backhand slices to draw Blake to the net then passed him or forced an error. This is much easier to do when your opponent is serving a lot of second serves and Blake was complying. He got 56% of his first serves in during the first set.

The strategy doesn’t work so well if you start hitting errors. Gonzalez began to lose his concentration and gave the break back to even the set at 5-5. In the tiebreaker, Gonzalez gave Blake set point after he drew Blake to the net yet again then missed the passing shot. First set to Blake.

Gonzalez continued to disintegrate in the second set. The crowd was yelling during his serve and he complained repeatedly to the umpire. Someone sitting near me yelled out, “We want France!” (France is playing Russia this weekend) , then started yelling at Gonzalez in German. Blake helped himself by upping his 1st serve percentage to 68% and swept the set, 6-0.

At this point you would have thought that Blake was on his way to sure victory, but that’s not how it works in Davis Cup. Blake broke Gonzalez early in the third set then, serving for the set at 5-4, hit a winner to get a match point. Except that the umpire overruled and called the ball out and ordered a replay. Gildemeister, the Chilean captain was outraged. The ball was out, why was there a replay? Good question. After the match, Blake sounded more than a bit frustrated with Gildemeister’s reaction (and his girlfriends): “I’ve had girlfriends that complained a lot, but he took that to a whole new level of complaining when they [got that call].” Gonzalez took advantage of the situation to break Blake and it was onto another tiebreaker where Gonzalez hit three winners and forced two errors to take the third set.

Gonzalez had already played a heroic match, both players had, but here he outdid himself

In the fourth set, Gonzalez returned to his strategy of drawing Blake to the net and Blake returned to his poor first serve percentage. Gonzalez got one break and evened the match at two sets apiece. We’d been out in the exceptionally hot sun for two and three quarter hours and we were going to be there a lot longer.

The first four sets of the match were close but they weren’t memorable. That was about to change. The fifth set was full of huge points.

Blake hit three straight service winners to cover two breaks points and hold his serve in the third game then hit the shot of the match, a running forehand passing shot down the line, to get a break point in the fourth game and go up 3-1.

After Blake held his serve in the next game, Gonzalez took a medical timeout to get his leg massaged. Gonzalez would take two timeouts in the fifth set for the same leg – players are allowed one medical timeout per injury – and this irked Blake: “when you take one injury timeout and get your leg rubbed, then five or six games later get the same leg rubbed and say now it’s cramping, … you tell me what that is. You think that belongs in the Major Leagues or in the Bush Leagues?”.

After Gildemeister’s outburst in the third set, Blake went on to lose his serve and the tiebreaker. After Gonzalez’ tactical timeout, Blake lost his serve to give back the break.

With the set even at 5-5, Gonzalez got a break point with a superb forehand cross court. On the next point, he hit a forehand return deep to force Blake into an error and put himself in position to serve for the match. The Chileans went crazy. They were chanting “ole ole ole ole, Chile, Chile” while the Americans, who are deficient when it comes to cheering because they’re not huge soccer fans, countered with a smattering of discordant “USA”s.

A break is not a break until you hold serve in the next game and Gonzalez couldn’t do it. He lost the game at love and the score was 6-6. There’s no tiebreaker in the fifth set in Davis Cup matches. The players had been on the court for almost four hours and there was no end in sight

With Blake serving at 7-7, Gonzalez hit a forehand winner that would have given him his second break point of the game if the chair umpire hadn’t overruled the call. Gildemeister was incensed yet again. Dean Goldfine was the Davis Cup captain this week while Patrick McEnroe sat in New York and awaited the imminent birth of his daughter. Not that it mattered. Those are two of the mildest personalities in tennis. In any other sport, the opposing coach or captain would have been right there with Gildemeister standing up for his players. It didn’t seem to bother Blake. His only regret was that Goldfine couldn’t have “come out and made a few first serves for me.”

Blake held on to win the game but gave up a break on his next service game with a double fault – evidently he needed Goldfine to hit second serves for him also – and Gonzalez got his second opportunity to serve for the match.

Gonzalez had already played a heroic match, both players had, but here he outdid himself. He’s ranked 48th on the ATP ace list and averages 4.2 aces per match but somehow managed to smash four aces when he needed it most. The last ace was a Roddickian 143 miles per hour that gave Chile the match and brought an end to a memorable and clamorous Davis Cup battle.

Sorry but I’m just too tired after four hours and twenty minutes in the hot desert sun to do much justice to the match between Andy Roddick and Nicolas Massu. Roddick hit at least one 150 mph serve and both players took nasty falls on the grass. Massu had bad luck in the second set tiebreaker when a Roddick backhand passing shot bounced off the net and over his head to give Roddick a mini-break.

There was a bit of controversy when Roddick had a good serve overruled and was given a first serve instead of a second serve – another strange call – but altogether it was a relatively quiet straight set victory.

Something tells me that quiet won’t last for long.