The Cabal is responding to the Davis Cup call. Colette Lewis writes:
If a Davis Cup tie is played between two (formerly) tennis-loving nations, and there is no coverage of it, does it exist?
I’m guessing the zone tie between victorious Germany in South Africa, which came down to the final match, was a riveting tennis event. I was in Germany this past week, and I can report that interest in this tie and tennis in general there is, as they say, null. Every German I spoke with about tennis said the same thing—it hasn’t mattered in Germany since Becker and Graf retired. The newspapers carry pages and pages of Formula I and soccer and Nordic skiing (!) and perhaps one sentence about Davis Cup tennis. I ransacked five or six German weekend papers just to try to get a Friday score from U.S. vs. Croatia, to no avail.
The British players complain regularly about the lack of interest in tennis in that country except during The Fortnight. The coverage of the Great Britain vs. Israel tie was a virtual deluge compared to that in Germany. I’ve always been critical of the hand-wringing that goes on in so many formerly dominant tennis nations when they don’t have a Grand Slam finalist contender. I now realize it’s a good thing. At least they care. There is no such angst in Germany. They have Michael Schumacher, and apparently that’s enough.