Los Angeles: The word “venerable” appears often in the lead paragraphs of writers feeling the overwhelming desire to add something — anything — to lend dignity to a building well-known to sports fans around the world: The Great Western Forum. The once state-of-the-art Hollywood version of the real Roman thing, familiar from uncountable televised Laker games, is only 33 years old. Venerable is a stretch. But in Southern California, where everything is new and shiny, venerable is yesterday’s leftover tofu croissant. Like the surrounding neighborhood of Inglewood, seedy better describes the Forum. Its distinctive white columns are dull from city grime. The familiar Laker royal purple facade is faded many colors. This is, regrettably, the perfect venue for an outstanding sporting event always relegated to page 5 on the cluttered American sports calendar: the Davis Cup. Flying high over the great desert that is the vast, empty American West, I wonder why any of us — the anonymous players from the politically confused Czech Republic, the busy American tennis icons, and an international press corps — are bothering at all. A story in The Dallas Morning News, reflecting most American coverage, belittles (to a degree well beyond insulting) Czech chances of winning a set, let alone a match, against the star-studded American team. With Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, the top two singles players in the world, plus the No.1 ranked doubles team going for the U.S., pessimism is understandable. Czech chances are written off faster than the debt of the Lincoln Savings and Loan.
U.S. coach John McEnroe detests anything “negative” the press writes about the Davis Cup. He’d consider this “nit-pickingí” but one of things wrong with Davis Cup is that too much about it is venerable. The Longwood Cricket Club, where this all started 100 years ago, is venerable, but that’s cool. A little history’s okay. But the arcane jargon used to describe common tennis terms, like matches, called a tie, and the total team competition, known in Cupeese as rubbers, go beyond venerable and into the dusty area of fossilized antiquity, giving the public the impression this is some stuffy English thing, like croquet or whist, instead of the Gunfight-at-OK-Corral, American stuff it is. Combine this with a Byzantine, complex format, and it becomes a tough sell to the sports-saturated American public, which is a shame. Davis Cup tennis is good stuff.
The team from the Czech Republic, with names combining queer combinations of vowels and consonants, is totally unknown to all but the most fanatic of tennis fans. Sweet Pete will begin with an easy win over a fellow named Jiri — your proverbial slam-dunkeroo. Unfortunately for the Pistol, who grew up a few miles from the venerable Forum, he played probably the worst important match of his notable career. There are some statistics from this match which don’t seem possible. Pete, with the best second serve in the history of the game, wins only 37% of his points on serve two. Normally rockets, today they’re lollipops, begging to be creamed. And in three sets, the owner of the most feared forehand in the game has exactly one forehand winner. He loses in three desultory, lazy sets to a journeyman player having a great day. It’s hard to recall any one-on-one upset of this magnitude: Leon Spinks beating Ali is close.
Agassi — clad in gunslinger black and playing next — gives the 11,000 red, white, and blue fans something to cheer about, dismantling a cheerful vegetarian and naturalist named Dosedel with more ease than Jiri dispatched Sampras. Agassi, looking fit and lean, is the best player, today, in the world.
So the match — sorry, rubber — is even at 1-1. Not to worry, Coach McEnroe tells the assembled mob of journalists, tomorrow the U.S.A. goes with the best doubles team in the world. They’ll blow the unknown Czechs off the fast American Deco-Turf. This was not to be. Spinks again pops Ali in the snout. And the L.A. media, flaunting the value of an expensive education, goes with David beating Goliath.
Today, Johnny Mac isn’t so sanguine. He insults his players, calling them “spoiled babies,” rips the media for “nit-pickingí” and tears into one poor lady, calling her question “the epitome of asinine nit-picking” (which was true). So ends Saturday’s press conference. Another bad day for the U.S.A.
The situation for the American team can now accurately be called desperate. Down 2-1, Agassi and Pete must win both their Sunday singles matches or the great U.S. team will be vanquished in an unthinkable tennis upset. Tennis drama brings out the second-string L.A. crowd. Observed on the scratchy Jumbotron are Penny Marshall, Rebecca De Mornay, Martin Short, Captain Kirk, Rodney Dangerfield, Phil Jackson, and the 10-10-220 guy. The attire of the day for the stoked American crowd is your basic flag: red, white, and blue suits, coats, and jumpsuits.
In other countries, where Davis Cup is a source of national pride, things can get quite dicey from a crowd control point of view. An on-court riot occurred today in Chile when the coca-weed-crazed Chileans, protesting a close line call, tossed heated pennies, chairs, bottles, and fruit at the Argentinean players, who had to be escorted off the court by police using plastic riot shields. Were this behavior considered acceptable in the U.S., there’d be no doubt about television ratings. They’d be through the roof. At the Great Western Forum, the most rowdy it got was middle-aged television executives yelling, “Get ’em, Pete.” Still, today’s crowd is energized. Agassi plays first, again crafting a perfect physical and tactical match, treating Pete’s tormentor from two days ago like his personal yo-yo, running the hulking Jiri from sideline to sideline, net to endline. All the pressure now falls on Pete.
The Pistol bears no resemblance to the zombie who borrowed his body two days ago. With his entire family in attendance, the stoic Sampras gives the noisy crowd something to yell about. Cracking “second serves” at 120mph and whipping his running forehand for scorching winners, Pete dispatches a game but outclasses Dosedel in straight sets.
Not to confuse the Davis Cup issue any further, but today the U.S. won only the right to advance to a semifinal match in Spain some time this summer. Still, as Pete, then Andre, and finally McEnroe run an emotional lap around the court draped in an American flag, I forget this.
It seems like we won something big.
This article appears in April 14 • 2000.