The French Have Their Wine... We've Got James Blake!

I anticipated the coming of the Davis Cup tie to North Carolina with great excitement this year, as Team France looked to be a very formidable opponent, at least on paper. With Richard Gasquet currently at No. 10, the much improved Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at No. 13, Paul-Henri Mathieu at No. 12, and a host of accomplished doubles players, including Michael Llodra, Julien Benneteau, Arnaud Clement, and Fabrice Santoro, this was not a team to be taken lightly. In fact, this was a team that we might not even be able to take. Throw the wildly athletic Guy Monfils in there, and you've got all the elements of a high-wire carnival act.

So, I went online at 10:00am Eastern Time on March 17, as did thousands of others, to purchase my tickets for me and my older brother, Tom, who would be flying in to RDU International in Raleigh on Friday at around noon from his business trip in Kansas City. My first attempt to purchase the tickets through TicketMaster came up empty: I used the drop-down menus to select the "Best Available" seats "At Any Price" (big mistake!) and the Web application came back with $500 tickets. Great seats, I'm sure. But 500 bucks?! Try again.... So I tried the $190 option, but couldn't get two tickets together. Finally, fearing I'd never get anything, I tried the $90-per-seat option, and was successful. Unfortunately, I'd be in the Upper Section again, same as last year.

The good news is there really isn't a poor seat in the house—the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, also known as the Winston-Salem Entertainment-Sports Arena, home to the Wake Forest men's basketball team, the Demon Deacons. Steely Dan even wrote a song about them in the 70s. Check it out sometime. "They call me Deacon Blue...".

Anyway, I was getting seriously pumped up for some prime-time tennis with Andy Roddick, James Blake, and the twin towers, Bob and Mike Bryan. Then the bad news trickled in. First, Tsonga pulled out. Then a few days later, Gasquet is sidelined. Holy crap! What just happened? Thankfully I didn't put down 1,000 smackeroos or I'd be one angry baboon.

It's a testament to the depth and heart of the French team that they came out and played some awesome tennis without their two top guns. (Even though Mathieu is ranked one spot above Tsonga, most feel that Tsonga would be a stronger pick on the fast surface.)

On Friday, Mathieu nearly upset No. 8 Blake in a riveting, electrifying five-setter that, in the end, showcased Blake's defensive skills and fearless shotmaking. Down 5-4, 40-15 in the fifth set, Blake made a remarkable return off Mathieu's wide slice serve to the deuce court, which completely opened the court for a winner that was nullified when Blake flew across the baseline and knifed a backhand slice as fine as any I've ever seen in my forty years watching tennis. That save sent the crowd roaring with approval and chants of "U-S-A... U-S-A" and Blake seemed to puff up with confidence as he reeled off huge return after huge return to break Mathieu and get himself back in the match. From that point on, he was a monster, although it still did not come easy, as Mathieu clawed and fought as gamely as any competitor ever has on foreign soil in front of a boisterous home crowd. I don't think there's any argument that on that day Gasquet could not have fought any more gamely than his countryman Mathieu did.

Then, on Saturday, the French team of Llodra and Clement played tactically smart, heads-up tennis to take down the No. 1 doubles team in the world in four sets with the tie on the line. The Bryan brothers came into that match 14-1 in Davis Cup competition, and the doubles point was considered about as "automatic" as in the days of McEnroe-Fleming. That would be John McEnroe, of course. But those of you who know and follow tennis recall that Llodra-Clement had taken down the Bryans in the 2007 Wimbledon final. And Llodra-Benneteau had upset the Bryans in the Las Vegas final earlier this year. What's more, Llodra has captured two titles this year already. This would be anything but automatic.

Here's the way it unfolded, in a nutshell. Bob (the lefty) and Mike (the righty) lined up with their forehands in the center of the court when receiving. Llodra (the lefty) and Clement (the righty) lined up in the traditional formation (a la McEnroe-Fleming), with the lefty wing on the outside of the court covering the ad-court sideline and returning the wide serves with that big hook forehand. I turned to my brother and said that I thought the Bryans would try to serve down the middle and blanket the center, while Llodra and Clement would serve more wide slices and kickers to pull the Bryans off the court and force them to return from their relatively weaker wings, their backhands. As it turned out, this was mostly true, at least when Llodra and Clement were serving.

One factor that no one could have predicted is how well Clement served. Putting in 70% of his first deliveries was huge. As Clement told Justin Gimelstob in his post-match on court interview (and I paraphrase here): "I don't serve so big, so it's important for me to get a good percentage." It began with Clement serving at 3-4 in the first set, as the balls were changed and he served up new ones. With new balls in hand, he hit two aces and held at Love. From there on out, he never looked even remotely vulnerable on his serve. (Perhaps all the talk from partner Llodra about drinking expensive wines after the match kept him loose.) If there was another factor, it was that Clement and Llodra stepped up the power and aggression on their returns, starting in the third set. At one set apiece, they clearly and visibly made an adjustment, deciding to go for bigger returns and take more chances around the net, poaching and feigning whenever possible. In essence, they began looking a lot more like the Bryans than the Bryans. And it paid of in a mighty big way, as we all know.

It was extremely disappointing, though understandable, that the Bryan brothers did not stick around to speak with Gimelstob, whose interview style has gotten a lot more polished, despite the fact that he still looks a little goofy in a suit.

I sold my Sunday tickets to a good friend on the cheap, so that brother Tom and I could play tennis and hang out with my seven-year-old before we had to get to the airport, so I cannot comment on the Sunday matches. You can read the blog of TENNIS Magazine's Peter Bodo (TennisWorld) if you want a more complete breakdown of the weekend's matches.

Let me sign off by sharing this last nugget. I've seen three Davis Cup ties now (2001 versus India, 2007 versus Spain, and 2008 versus France, all in Winston-Salem), and one thing remains constant: expect the unexpected. Look for Andy Roddick and James Blake to each win once, and for the Bryans to tie the winning record of McEnroe and Fleming, on the crushed red brick in Spain.

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