Courier Deserves Plenty of IOUs for Heroics

One break of serve and the Davis Cup house of cards stayed upright.

The often unreasonable trigger finger of blame was ready and poised to start pointing when Jim Courier ended it all by breaking Greg Rusedski at love in the 14th game of the fifth set, giving the United States a 3-2 victory over Great Britain.

The beneficiaries were many, and some, not so obvious.

* Courier: He won his two singles matches in five sets against Tim Henman and Rusedski, spending almost eight hours on the court at Birmingham, England. The cloak of Davis Cup hero is fitting Courier quite well.

An American has won a five-set match in the decisive rubber five times. Courier has done it twice in just over a year. In 1998, he defeated Marat Safin of Russia in five sets to decide the first-round tie.

* Todd Martin: The classiest man in U.S. tennis was brilliant in his straight-set dismissal of Rusedski on the opening day. With an experienced Courier on hand, the pressure did not completely rest on Martin’s shoulders as team leader, the way it did against the Italians in Milwaukee. An achy, ailing Martin nearly made it 3-0 with doubles partner Alex O’Brien, but the Americans lost in five sets. After Birmingham, Martin promptly took off for Estoril, Portugal, and nearly gained his second clay-court title in a little more than a year, losing the final in three sets to Albert Costa. He will be defending his championship at Barcelona this week.

* Captain Tom Gullikson: Put that list of potential successors back in the file. He immediately stated that Martin and Courier are his team for the next tie vs. Australia, ending the prospect of another round of begging and cajoling the usual suspects, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi.

* Longwood: Instead of hosting a dreary relegation round against one of the winners of the zonal group, the Americans will be playing a high-profile quarterfinal against Australia on July 16-18. The Longwood Cricket Club in Boston was host of the first Davis Cup tie in 1900 when the United States defeated Britain, 3-0.

As Americans know from experience, relegation rounds are no sure thing. Remember Eric Jelen? The United States lost a famous relegation-round match to West Germany in 1987 at Hartford, Conn.

Granted, the United States would not have faced a quality team, as it did in 1987. Depending upon the relegation-round draw, it could have played a team such as South Africa or Chile. (The Brits drew South Africa).

Davis Cup is quirky enough without having to worry about falling into the mire of zonal-group play. Certainly a motivated Marcelo Rios--who always plays Davis Cup, by the way--could carry the Chileans by himself.

* Agassi and Sampras: Strange beneficiaries, indeed, but a loss would have brought out the finger of blame.

Agassi is having enough off-court problems these days--namely divorce proceedings with wife, actress Brooke Shields. Sampras was able to rest and to practice “on the dirt” in Florida at Saddlebrook. He is serious about his French Open preparation, asking for a wild-card entry at Barcelona.

For those who thought Sampras might change his mind about Davis Cup, it won’t happen, not in 1999, and not any time soon.

Who knows? Maybe once Gullikson quits asking, perhaps Sampras and Agassi might want back in . . . but don’t waste too much time waiting.

CIRCLE K

Yes, there were other stirring Davis Cup stories in the first round and it could be summed up as the three Ks . . . Kuerten, Kafelnikov and Kucera.

Karol Kucera--he of the errant service toss--led tiny Slovakia to its biggest Davis Cup victory, a 3-2 win against Sweden at Trollhattan, Sweden.

Kucera won his singles matches, defeating Thomas Johansson and Thomas Enqvist in four sets. He also played doubles, losing in five sets.

Gustavo Kuerten also prevailed in hostile territory, accounting for all of Brazil’s points in a 3-2 victory over the heavily favored Spaniards at Lleida.

Finally, there was the iron-man Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who has struggled since his near-miss with the No. 1 ranking. But he led Russia in a 3-2 victory over Germany in Frankfurt with straight-set victories over Nicolas Kiefer and Tommy Haas.

LOCAL SHOTS

* Tommy Tucker of Mission Hills said that his club in Rancho Mirage is hosting the first national tournament in the 90-and-over division. The event is held in conjunction with a national 60s tournament, starting today “We have someone in the 60s and his dad is in the 90s,” Tucker said.

* There was one Southern California singles winner at the Easter Bowl in Florida. Promising Phillip King of Long Beach won the boys 18s, defeating Matias Boeker of Miami, 6-4, 6-0.