| | John McEnroe, a New Yorker's New Yorker in word and deed, truly loves L.A. The feeling, apparently, is mutual.
|  | | John McEnroe should be in good shape with Andre Agassi lead the charge for the U.S. |
The United States Davis Cup captain has been everywhere this past week, promoting himself and his quirky niche enterprise. McEnroe appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, HBO's Dennis Miller Live, ESPN's Up Close, NBC's Today Show and The Last Word with Jim Rome. More importantly, he was interviewed by Ahmad Rashad during Sunday's nationally televised game between the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks at the Staples Center.
Sadly for McEnroe, the Lakers throttled the Knicks 106-82.
"The Lakers are something else. They really are," McEnroe said Monday. "We are going to try to be the Lakers this week."
This is not exactly a stretch.
The U.S. team is comprised of Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, plus doubles players Alex O'Brien and Jared Palmer. On Friday, they meet the Czech Republic squad of Jiri Novak, Slava Dosedel, Martin Damm and David Rikl -- not exactly household names, even in the Czech Republic.
Agassi and Sampras, the two best players in the world, are a little bruised around the edges. Agassi stretched an ankle ligament in last week's Ericsson Open quarterfinal against Tim Henman and limped through a semifinal loss to Gustavo Kuerten. Sampras beat Kuerten in the final but needed four sets, three tiebreakers and three hours and 18 minutes to do the job.
Both athletes were limited in Monday and Tuesday practice sessions. This does not mean they won't step on the court Friday. They are, for the record, 41-11 in Davis Cup singles matches.
"Pete had a tough match, so he's feeling some aches and pains," McEnroe said. "Andre is hurting a little bit. Obviously, he's not as confident as he was, but I anticipate the energy he'll get from this will be real positive and will help him. Whereas, if we were playing away it would be a more negative thing.
"There is no question that we should win these matches. If Sampras and Agassi are playing up to their potential, they should win all of their matches as well as the doubles team. We are overwhelming favorites, even more than in our first match, in my opinion."
That match, in Zimbabwe in early February, was very nearly a disaster for the U.S. McEnroe's first tie as captain was threatened when Sampras was unavailable for action. Agassi won both his matches against the Black brothers, Wayne and Byron, but Chris Woodruff, playing for Sampras, fell to Byron Black and the doubles team of Rick Leach and O'Brien lost as well.
That left the final match to Woodruff and the more experienced Wayne Black. Against most odds, Woodruff won in four dramatic sets. Not since Raymond Little in 1909 had a U.S. rookie won the fifth and decisive Davis Cup match.
Woodruff, a little-known 27-year-old from Knoxville, Tenn., saved McEnroe and the Americans from unmitigated embarrassment. But when Sampras, perhaps the best men's player, ever wants to play, you have to let him play. McEnroe said it was difficult to call Woodruff.
"There is not a lot of good parts about the job," McEnroe said. "You feel bad you have to tell someone who obviously had the greatest moment of his career, 'Thanks a lot, but keep ready.' He's sitting there in Tennessee feeling like he's not a part of it."
Although McEnroe is virtually guaranteeing a 5-0 victory, the Czechs are deceptively tough. Sure, their résumés are not sparkling: Novak and Dosedel are generally ranked in the No. 50-60-something range, and Damm and Rikl already have lost to O'Brien and Palmer twice this year, two weeks ago in the Ericsson Open quarterfinals and the quarters of the Australian Open.
Still, somehow, the Czech Republic took out Great Britain 4-1 in the first round at home in Ostrava. In fact, Novak defeated Henman, a pretty good player, in three straight sets.
Davis Cup aficionados might recall that the Czech Republic defeated the U.S. 3-2 in the 1996 quarterfinals in Prague. That, of course, was with Todd Martin, MaliVai Washington playing singles and the other McEnroe, Patrick, playing doubles with Patrick Galbraith.
One of McEnroe's missions as captain is to raise the visibility of Davis Cup competition, which occupies a very low rung in the food chain. This weekend, the Masters, the fresh concept of baseball, basketball and even hockey will play higher in the nation's sporting press.
"It's a tough sell to get people to believe in it," McEnroe said. "I can tell you that out of 100 people, 99 if not all 100, couldn't tell you when the next Davis Cup match was after this and don't know that Davis Cup is spread out over a 12-month period."
The semifinal answer: at the winner of the Russia-Spain match in mid-July.
"The players don't know either, and that's not acceptable," McEnroe said. "Something I try and work with virtually every day with my kids is respecting where you came from and an appreciation of the past. How many people have an understanding, even myself, of what people went through in World War II? I think there is a lack of respect because of that, not just in sports, but in general.
"There has to be people who have to stand up and make them aware of it and hope that their attitudes change."
Can it be? Has McEnroe, the rebel against authority, the enemy of the chair umpire, become the standard-bearer of the establishment? Has the ultimate outsider become the consummate insider? Has Mad Mac, at 41, sold out to The Man? Well, yes.
"It's more of a figure-head position than sitting on a court (and coaching)," he said. "More of it is the promotion of Davis Cup and getting the players and everyone to realize what it is about and what it represents for the sport. I had a lot of great moments playing myself."
McEnroe holds six major Davis Cup records: most years on the team (12), most ties played (30), most singles matches (49), most singles victories (41), most total matches (69) and most total victories (59).
If those records are one day surpassed by Agassi and Sampras, McEnroe, the 37th Davis Cup captain, will go down as the very best.
Greg Garber is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. | |
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