TENNIS / CHAMPIONS CUP : For Gilbert, Wheaton, It’s a Team Game Now

Here is the typical Brad Gilbert-David Wheaton meeting of not too long ago: Walk 10 paces, turn and hurl rackets at each other.

They liked each other about as much as a drop shot. It all started three years ago at Wimbledon, where they beaned each other with some choice words.

After Gilbert had beaten him in five sets, there was “no chance” Gilbert would win another match, Wheaton sniffed. Gilbert told Wheaton to grow up.

Then, a few months later at the Grand Slam Cup in Munich, the animosity increased. Wheaton and Gilbert jostled each other at the net after Gilbert had won, both players offering novel suggestions about where they might like to leave their rackets.

As Wheaton explained: “Words were exchanged. Almost, fists were exchanged.”

But since politics and tennis (is there any difference?) make strange bedfellows, here it is a couple of years later and Wheaton and Gilbert are Davis Cup teammates. It’s a wonderful world.

“We’ll have to put it behind us,” said Gilbert, who defeated ninth-seeded Sergi Bruguera in the opening round of the Newsweek Champions Cup here Monday, 6-7 (7-3), 6-2, 7-6 (7-4).

“Obviously, we haven’t been the best of friends before,” Gilbert said.

But good fellowship abounded here and all in all, it was a downright smashing day for the U.S. Davis Cup team that is going to show up in Melbourne to play Australia on the grass courts of Kooyong this month.

Wheaton, Richey Reneberg and Jim Grabb also won their first-round matches in the $1.7-million event at Hyatt Grand Champions, where the sun shone on the Davis Cup team that knows it probably wouldn’t have been the Davis Cup team if some higher profile players had decided to play.

Besides that, even if the United States does rise up from its underdog role and slaps the favored Australians, chances are, the big names--Courier, Sampras and Agassi--will get the call the rest of the way.

Maybe so, said Reneberg, who came up with a pretty good point nonetheless: “If we don’t win this one, we don’t have to worry about it.”

Gilbert’s worries were not many against Bruguera, who apparently did his share to help.

“He was out to lunch quite a bit,” Gilbert said.

In any event, Gilbert lost the first set after leading, 5-0, and won the third set after trailing, 4-0. This is sort of doing it backward, which is what Scott Davis told Gilbert afterward.

“Beej, you’re a magician,” Davis said.

He is also a politician. There is nothing like being the fourth or fifth choice to play singles for your country’s Davis Cup team, but Gilbert said there was never any question that he would show up when Tom Gorman asked.

“Some guys feel bitter about it,” Gilbert said. “I can rationalize what’s going on. All I can say is, there’s nothing like hearing them say ‘Game, USA.’ There’s nothing like putting on a Team USA jacket. Nobody can take any memories of Davis Cup away from me. I’ll always have them.”

Wheaton has no Davis Cup memories, since he hasn’t played any Davis matches, but he does have vivid memories of his history with Gilbert.

“We’re both competitors and those were heat-of-the-moment things,” he said. “It’s over.”

Wheaton, who defeated Alex O’Brien, 6-1, 7-5, plays top-seeded Jim Courier today. Grabb ousted 11th-seeded Guy Forget, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, and Reneberg defeated Jordi Arrese, 7-5, 7-5.

So it was a clean sweep for the U.S. Davis Cup team, one that does not include 18th-ranked Mal Washington, much to his chagrin. Washington, who won his first-round match against Patrick Rafter, was passed over by Gorman in favor of No. 50-ranked Wheaton.

“I’m not going to whine and cry about it,” Washington said. “Logically, maybe I would have been the best choice, but I think people are dwelling on this way too much.”

Welcome to the Davis Cup, Mal.

Tennis Notes

Pete Sampras, Petr Korda, Goran Ivanisevic, Andre Agassi and Michael Stich don’t play until Wednesday.