Mornin'. A little late to the game today, because my Outlook more-or-less crashed, but I wanted to give you a place to track today's action until I geta red-meat post up a little later. Those of you who watched Tennis Channel coverage of the USA vs. Switzerland Davis Cup tie may have seen the on-court interview Justin Gimelstob did with Andy Roddick following the third, clinching USA victory (I caught stretches of Justin's commentary during the matches and thought he was candid and insightful). Anyway, at one point in the Roddick interview Justin looked ahead to the next USA tie (vs. Croatia) and said, "And now you go on to Umag, and the red clay. . ."
I thought, whoa! Who said it was going to be in Umag, and on red clay? Am I nuts to think clay may not be the best choice for the tie? When I asked Roddick about Gimelstob's assumption in the presser afterwards, he said: "I'm not entirely convinced that it's going to be on clay. I don't know if that really helps them all that much. . It's going to be a choice of whether they want to try to help themselves a lot of just make us uncomfortable. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that we'll play on clay, especially with the success they had against us twice on hard surfaces. . . We'll see. Everyone kind of quickly jumping to that assumption, but I don't know if it's a slam dunk."
Incidentally, Croatia is the only team that the USA has played but never beaten in Davis Cup competition (and that's a pool of 38 nations). USA is 0-2 vs. Croatia, and while you can't exactly call that domination, it's pretty impressive.
I'll be back later
-- Pete