Whether you are a spectator, player, official or journalist,
everybody who had been to a Davis
Cup tie has memories of the battles they have witnessed. Below
I have collected memories from a number of sources, and have been fortunate
to receive stories from players and journalists over the past few months.
Pancho
Gonzales, despite
turning professional on the Jack Kramer tour, managed to win the
1949 Cup for the United States
Dwight
Davis, once told Sir
Norman Brookes, by then the President of the Lawn Tennis Association
of Australia, that his vision of the Davis Cup must not be forgotten,
saying: "It is meant to travel. It's appearance in any country brings
a flock of exterior implications very beneficial to sporting unity in
the tennis world and the tennis world is a big world."
John
McEnroe always said: "I will go anywhere, anytime to play Davis Cup for America."
John McEnroe considers his 1992 final appearance when
USA beat Switzerland 3-1 in Texas as his favourite Davis Cup moment: "Being part of what I consider to be a legendary team with Pete
Sampras, Andre Agassi and Jim
Courier, and going through the divorce (from my ex-wife Tatum
O'Neill), I'd just begun I was feeling emotionally not really capable
of playing. I think perhaps that that could be my greatest emotional moment,
to be able to be part of that squad."
Nicola
Pietrangeli, of Italy, played 164 matches in 66 ties for his
country. "In tennis only Davis Cup gives you the opportunity to belong
to a team. It's not only you, there's many people. If you become friends
with everybody, I think it's a great experience. Really, when you play
Davis Cup and you play on a team, it's something different. That's what
makes Davis Cup such an unbelievable event."
Italy´s
finest Nicki Pietrangeli
Sir
Norman Brookes' wife, Dame Mabel, obviously didn't appreciate
the bowl as much as her husband, and described the bowls frequent stays
in their home, saying: "He brought the Cup back in his luggage with his other cups. You
had to do everything yourself in those days. Nobody much wanted the Cup.
It used to sit on our sideboard, and it was so big, it dwarfed everything
else. Nobody looked any good at all alongside that darned bath. We put
red peonies in it."
In an article written by Rene
Lacoste and titled: 'A Quest for the Cup,' the Frenchman
described the unbelievable sensation of finally beating the U.S.A. in
1927 to bring the Cup home for the first time. "Victory! A simple word. So short - and yet how expressive. The
end of an effort began in 1922: so many matches played in all the countries
of the world, so many endless thousands of miles travelled over, so many
hopes shattered as soon as formed and today finally realised. The Atlantic
crossed and re-crossed seven times. Months and months passed in dreaming
of this day! And at last it had come."
Famed New York Times reporter Allison Danzig wrote her
memories of Donald Budge,
as he turned down a professional contract worth $50,000 to stay amateur
and compete one last time for his country in 1938. "He thought he owed it to amateur tennis, in return for all that
it had done for him and the opportunity it had given him to see the world,
become famous and make something of himself, to remain an amateur for
another year and help defend the Cup the United States had been so long
in regaining."
Gustavo Kuerton,
three time winner at Roland Garros who plays for Brazil
The Independent's tennis correspondent, John Roberts,
said his favourite memory was: "President Boris Yelsin, of Russia, a tennis fan, walked into
the Olympic Stadium in Moscow, unannounced, as Alexander Volkov was in
the middle of a point against Stefan
Edberg, of Sweden, in the 1994 final. As 10,000 spectators
cheered, Volkov looked on, stunned. He had just been broken for 5-5 in
the fifth set of the opening rubber after Edberg had saved a match point.
Volkov was so nervous after Yeltsin's arrival that he could barely put
a ball in court. Edberg went on to win, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7, 0-6, 8-6, to put
Sweden on the way to a 4-1 victory."
The world´s youngest number one and winner of
the U.S. Open in 2001, Lleyton Hewitt said: "For me growing up,
Davis Cup was the be-all and end-all. I dreamed one day playing Davis
Cup for Australia."
Jim
Courier, former world number one, said: "This is as
good as it gets. The guys in the locker room all said that this is the
highest level of tennis that they can be a part of."
