Fish Pulls Double Duty in US Win at BetLM

Fish Pulls Double Duty in US Win

In Davis Cup all things are pos­si­ble and the United States team just proved it in Switzerland.

With­out Andy Rod­dick, their banker over the past decade; with­out half of their tal­is­manic dou­bles team; made to play on a spe­cially laid clay court indoors at the Fri­bourg Forum and fac­ing Roger Fed­erer, Jim Courier’s team sur­prised them­selves and shocked the ten­nis world by estab­lish­ing a 3–0 win­ning lead after just two days play.

If John Isner’s fan­tas­tic four-set vic­tory over Fed­erer in Friday’s sec­ond sin­gles was one of the least expected results in recent Davis Cup his­tory, it was Mardy Fish who stepped up big-time for the US – beat­ing Stan Wawrinka in a marathon five-set first rub­ber and then fill­ing Bob Bryan’s shoes to team with Mike Bryan in a dou­bles match against Fed­erer and Wawrinka that the Amer­i­cans dom­i­nated with sur­pris­ing ease. The final score was 4–6, 6–3, 6–3, 6–3 and even though the scratch pair­ing man­aged a Bryan-style chest bump at the end, every­one in the Amer­i­can camp looked a lit­tle disbelieving.

“We are pleas­antly sur­prised,” said Courier, who came of age as a Davis Cup cap­tain in this tie. “We were on a mis­sion and came here with a clear mes­sage – to be focused and play aggres­sive ten­nis. And we did that. It was a sweet vic­tory but we had to earn it.”

They cer­tainly did. No Davis Cup tie played away from home on a sur­face cho­sen by the oppo­si­tion is ever easy and given the qual­ity of the play­ers fac­ing them and the US record of los­ing away on clay, this had appeared to be a peak too high to climb in the Swiss Alps for a depleted team.

But much of the team spirit built up dur­ing Patrick McEnroe’s long tenure as cap­tain has obvi­ously been care­fully fos­tered by the pop­u­lar Courier who com­mands instant respect as the win­ner of four Grand Slam sin­gles titles dur­ing his play­ing days.

Teenager Ryan Har­ri­son had been pen­ciled in as Mike Bryan’s dou­bles part­ner when the teams were announced but as soon as Fish told his cap­tain he felt fresh enough to han­dle the task in hand, there was never any doubt that Courier was going to go for the jugu­lar and throw in his best com­bi­na­tion. The 0–2 score­line from Switzerland’s point of view also ensured that Fed­erer would be called into dou­bles action to play along­side his Olympic gold-winning part­ner Warwinka.

It started well for them when Fish played his only bad game of the match and dropped serve in the open­ing game. “We came out a lit­tle ner­vous,” admit­ted Bryan. “But Mardy is a clutch player and he played a lit­tle bit like Bob!”

Back home, help­ing to care for his new­born daugh­ter, Bob Bryan must have smiled at that. But one thing is cer­tain, the new father will be back on duty for the next round against the win­ners of the tie between France and Canada.

BetLM's sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more ten­nis news see: Fish pulls dou­ble duty in US win.

Related Posts:

• Lak­ers Get Huge Dou­ble Over­time Win Over Thun­der…. With­out Harden
• Lotus Con­sid­ers Dou­ble DRS Options
• Bif­fle Pulls Away to Give Roush Another Texas Win
• Rus­sell Rolls Past Fish on Hous­ton Clay
• Highest-Ranked Amer­i­can, Fish, Out of Davis Cup

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•