TENNIS DAVIS CUP : Vindication Comes in Easy U.S. Victory

It was a Davis Cup match with global implications: The United States team came to Southern California to defeat Mexico so it can travel to Europe to play Czechoslovakia.

In this kind of tennis, you need a visa just as much as a racket. On a sunny Saturday afternoon at La Costa, the United States finished off Mexico and clinched a first-round Davis Cup victory, 3-0, as Rick Leach and Jim Pugh won their heavily critiqued Davis Cup doubles debut.

Leach and Pugh, whose frailties were dissected last week by Robert Seguso, half of the last U.S. doubles team, looked sharp in defeating Leonardo Lavalle and Jorge Lozano, 6-4, 6-7 (7-4), 7-5, 6-1.

It took two hours 27 minutes to play the match, but 13 months to get it on the court. Not until Ken Flach and Seguso lost their first Davis Cup match in five years did Leach and Pugh get a chance they had been waiting for.

“And it seems like we’ve been waiting quite a long time,” Leach said.

There is no guarantee that they will play when the United States meets the Czechs next month for a second-round match in which Flach and Seguso’s Davis Cup experience may be wanted. Leach and Pugh have never played in Europe.

“But if this is our last one, well, we had a great time,” Leach said.

So did the U.S. team, which won easily as expected, even though each member was in some way a replacement. Brad Gilbert replaced Michael Chang, and Jay Berger subbed for Aaron Krickstein after injuries. Then there was Leach and Pugh instead of Flach and Seguso.

Now, after taking out Mexico with ease, U.S. captain Tom Gorman has proved that he certainly did not put together a team for which there is no substitute.

In Pugh’s mind, there was a little vindication.

“We were called the ‘replacement’ team and we came through,” he said.

Lavalle and Lozano complained about a service line call with Pugh serving, 15-40, 5-5, in the third set. They claimed Pugh’s second serve was long and called the incident the key to the match.

But for the U.S., anxious moments were kept to a minimum, although there was one big one when Pugh faced a break point that would have given Mexico a 6-5 lead in the third set.

Instead, Pugh held serve and scorched a backhand at Lavalle, who blooped a volley into the net at set point.

That just about did it. Leach and Pugh allowed only four points on their serve in the fourth set and ended the match faster than you can say Seguso.

Gorman was suitably impressed.

“How can they play any better than that?” he asked.

But at the same time, Gorman was noncommittal about their chances for playing against Czechoslovakia, resorting to vague comments that would have made a coach or a diplomat proud.

“It’ll be like a manager having to make a pitching change,” he said. “Maybe there will be a rain delay or something. There are a lot of times when reasons for picking them probably aren’t 100 percent, based on five different reasons.”

Got that?

All that we know for sure is that Gorman and his wife, Danni, are expecting a baby in the next couple of weeks.

“I think I’ll be focusing on that,” he said.

Leach and Pugh had all week to focus on Seguso’s comments that they might not be able to handle the pressure, or that they never should have lost in the semifinals in Australia.

“I think we both thought he was being kind of harsh,” Pugh said. “But, because this was Davis Cup, we knew there was going to be a lot of extra pressure anyway.”

Gorman has eight weeks before he has to field a team in Czechoslovakia, which means that Leach and Pugh’s results in Toronto, Philadelphia, Indian Wells and Key Biscayne will have a bearing on their Davis Cup chances.

If not, then maybe there is another possibility. Jay Senter, Leach and Pugh’s manager, has suggested an exhibition showdown with Flach and Seguso to decide, once and for all, who’s going to play Davis Cup.

There is about as much chance of such an event happening as Mexico winning this match.

“We aren’t going to choose our team like that,” he said.

Whatever the criteria, Leach and Pugh made a pretty good case for themselves.