U.S. Team Has Little Trouble
Defending a Davis Cup title is an unexpectedly grueling campaign, with intense skirmishes every few months cushioned by uncertain lulls. The U.S. team on Saturday guaranteed itself that it will again join the international fray by taking an unsurmountable 3-0 lead over Mexico.
Although the victory by the U.S. team of Patrick Galbraith and Patrick McEnroe over Leonardo Lavalle and Oscar Ortiz of Mexico was never taken for granted, it was certainly expected and will serve to refocus American attention on its second-round match in two months.
With Galbraith and McEnroe’s 7-6 (9-7), 6-4, 6-3 victory, the United States now holds a 28-3 record against Mexico in Davis Cup competition.
Today’s dead rubber singles matches at the La Costa Resort feature Michael Chang against Alejandro Hernandez and Todd Martin against Lavalle in best-of-three sets.
Little thought was given to those meaningless matches, however, as the U.S. team turns its attention to its next Davis Cup opponent. The United States will meet the Czech Republic in the second-round match, expected to be played April 5-7 in Prague. The Czechs clinched their victory Saturday over Hungary, 3-0.
The Czechs have the right to select the playing surface, and U.S. captain Tom Gullikson joked that, given the country’s athletic inclinations toward hockey, he wouldn’t be surprised to see the match played on an ice rink.
“[Petr] Korda is their key guy,” Gullikson said. “He’d do well indoors or on a hardcourt. So maybe it will be indoors on carpet. I wouldn’t anticipate it being on clay.”
Korda and Daniel Vacek played singles for the Czechs against Hungary. Those players, and doubles specialist Cyril Suk, along with Martin Damm, make the Czech team formidable.
“My initial thoughts are that Korda is very dangerous and explosive,” Gullikson said. “He’s prone to having big wins. He’s beaten all the top players. Cyril Suk is a throwback doubles player--he chips and charges.”
As for who will play for the United States--the perennial question/problem for Gullikson--all he could say was that he had preliminary talks with Jim Courier.
Based on Saturday’s results, Gullikson at least has a dependable doubles team. Galbraith, a three-time All American at UCLA, was playing in his first Davis Cup match. Ranked No. 5 in doubles, he and ex-partner Grant Connell won the doubles World Championship last year.
Despite his obvious skills, Galbraith was tight early in the match, but settled down and exhibited good hands and a cool head.
But it was McEnroe who carried the team. He was brilliant when serving, giving up only nine points on his serve over three sets. And it was McEnroe who got the U.S. team out of a jam in the first-set tiebreaker. Down 4-1 and two mini-breaks, McEnroe’s solid volleying and pinpoint service returns brought the U.S. team back to win the set.
The Mexicans fought hard, but McEnroe and Galbraith began to gel over the last two sets. The Americans held three match points before breaking Ortiz for the match.
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Davis Cup Notes
The Czech Republic clinched a spot in the last eight when Daniel Vacek and Cyril Suk battled through three tiebreaks and came from two sets down to defeat Hungary’s Sandor Noszaly and Gabor Koves, 6-7 (2-7), 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (9-7), 6-4, 6-4. . . . Former Wimbledon champion Michael Stich teamed up with Davis Cup rookie David Prinosil to beat Jakob Hlasek and Alexandre Strambini, 6-2, 7-5, 6-2, giving Germany a crushing 3-0 victory over Switzerland despite playing without an injured Boris Becker and Stich in singles. Prinosil and Hendrik Dreekman, relative unknowns, won both singles matches on Friday. Dreekman upset Olympic champion Marc Rosset. . . . Jonas Bjorkman teamed with Nicklas Kulti to defeat Filip Dewulf and Dick Norman, 6-3, 6-1, 6-4, in a match that lasted less than two hours in ousting Belgium. . . . South Africa’s match against Austria was left hanging at 1-1 when the doubles match was halted for the third time by rain with Wayne Ferreira and Gary Muller leading Thomas Muster and Alex Antonitsch, 2-1, in the fourth set. The Austrians led, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), 6-7 (7-5). . . . Italy’s Andrea Gaudenzi and Diego Nargiso rallied to a 6-4, 2-6, 5-7, 7-6 (7-4) upset victory over Russia’s Andrei Olhovskiy and Yevgeny Kafelnikov and the Italians took a surprising 2-1 lead going into today’s final matches.
