Posted by Peter Bodo, TENNIS.com
You could call this a tale of two rookies -- one of whom had a good weekend, while the other one had a great weekend. I'm talking about
Sam Querrey of the U.S. and
Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina, respectively. If you want to get all technical about it, Del Potro isn't exactly a rookie -- he played two ties in 2007. But he's still a newcomer and potential force for the blue-and-white -- the best nation never to win the Davis Cup.
Querrey lost both of his singles matches this weekend in the bullring in Madrid, but keep in mind that one of them was the dead fifth rubber (Feliciano Lopez, subbing for David Ferrer, took out Querrey in a pair of tiebreakers), and in the other he held his own -- and then some -- against a man who's already established his credentials as, arguably, the greatest clay-court player in Open era history (only Bjorn Borg is in the same league).
Querrey, who won't be 21 until next month, was thrown into the deep end, playing Nadal on clay before a wildly partisan crowd in the opening match of the tie -- the most challenging Davis Cup scenario anyone could cook up for a kid wearing his national colors in sporting combat for the first time. Querrey won the first-set tiebreaker and held his own over the next three sets, even as Nadal won them. This is what they call a baptism by fire, and the lanky, even-tempered southern California boy showed great composure while the flames were licking his forehead.
Given the state of American tennis, the idea of a "Davis Cup controversy" is a novel idea. But that's just what U.S. captain Patrick McEnroe might be facing for the 2009 World Group campaign. It boils down to this: Does McEnroe stick with James Blake, who's served with distinction (he's 17-8 in singles and a surprising 4-4 in singles on clay), or begin building the Next Generation squad around Andy Roddick, the pillar of the team, and Querrey? With Querrey improving and Blake seemingly treading water, this might prove to be a tougher decision than it presently appears by the time the U.S. plays its next tie in early 2009.
Down in Argentina, Del Potro might have given his nation something it has rarely enjoyed -- an all-purpose (by surface) performer with a rock-solid temperament -- something that the team's star and workhorse, David Nalbandian, doesn't possess.
Although Nalbandian carved up Igor Andreev in the first match of the tie and Del Potro pummeled Nikolay Davydenko in the second, the heroics of the Russian doubles squad (Igor Kunitsyn and Dmitry Tursunov, who beat Nalbandian and Guillermo Canas, 8-6 in the fifth) kept the tie live. Nalbandian then ran out of gas and went down 6-0 in the fifth to Davydenko. That was significant mostly because of what followed -- Argentina's fifth match, a tie-clinching demolition of Andreev by Del Potro, who gave up a miserly seven games.
The Argentinians now have the option of hosting the final on a hard or fast indoor court, which is bad news for Spain. And the Americans can look to a future with a few more options than they had a few weeks ago.
Peter Bodo
