Russia Beat Serbia
Davis Cup 2008
Russia’s 3-2 victory over Serbia was almost as much about the relationship between appearance and illusion as it was about tennis. What should have been a celebration of Novak Djokovic’s first event since winning the Australian Open became a tactical battle for Serbia to get enough players ready for the relevant matches, and part of that battle was an attempt to control information to the point where no-one really knew who was ill or injured, and by how much. What also emerged by the end of the weekend was that the Russian team also had its own health issues.
Modern sport is based around players being in peak fitness, and tennis is no exception. But peak fitness so often means pushing the body beyond the limits “normally fit” people stick within, and that’s when super-fit bodies can rebel. When that happens, some of the most eagerly awaited sporting moments can be spoiled. Who knows why – a few days after being feted a hero for breaking the Federer-Nadal Grand Slam stranglehold – Djokovic’s body decided to call a time-out? Maybe it was a psychological come-down after his heroics in Melbourne, or he picked up a germ in a plane, or the fact that he spent over two hours being acclaimed outdoors on a cold Belgrade day while wearing just a T-shirt? It probably depends on where you believe illness comes from. But what was clear was that he arrived in Moscow for Serbia’s first-ever Davis Cup by BNP Paribas world group tie with flu-like symptoms, which prevented him from practising on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday leading up to the tie. Add to that the leg injury picked up in Moscow by Serbia’s No 2 Janko Tipsarevic, whose previous match was taking Roger Federer to a 10-8 fifth set, and fate was being particularly unkind to the newcomers.
They still nominated Djokovic for the first day, and Tipsarevic kept people guessing by saying he had a stomach bug rather than an injury (the illness can clear in a couple of days, the injury would take three weeks), but it was all part of using information as a weapon in the war. In the end, Serbia had to go into the opening day’s singles with a 31-year-old doubles specialist ranked 689 in singles who had been running a temperature the previous day and a 21-year-old playing his first Davis Cup rubber – this against two players in the world’s top 10. The fact that Serbia went to bed on Friday night having won three sets when none would have been no embarrassment testifies to the nation’s fighting spirit. But then the underlying story behind this weekend is that you underestimate Serbia at your peril.
Russia also affected by fitness issues
By Saturday, Russia’s captain Shamil Tarpischev must have been rueing his decision to let Igor Andreev miss the tie because of tournament commitments in America. Marat Safin – Russia’s most versatile player whose absence from the 2007 final was such a loss to his country’s chances of defending its 2006 title – was already carrying a foot injury but woke up on Saturday with a temperature, and couldn’t play. The Safin-Tursunov pairing, Tarpischev’s original nomination after they played so well in the 2006 final against Argentina’s Calleri and Nalbandian, was replaced by Tursunov-Youzhny, who had lost their previous three rubbers. But the real interest in the doubles was whether Djokovic would last in his first match since winning in Australia.
He did. Helped by the world class Zimonjic who was still under the weather, the Serbs were simply the better doubles team, and the fact that they won in straight sets limited Djokovic’s time on court and gave the visitors hope that their star could be fit for the final day.
He was out there against Nikolay Davydenko, even if not fully fit. He later admitted to feeling dizzy from the start, but you’d never have known it as he took the first set of the fourth rubber, a match pitting the third and fourth best players in the world against each other. Leading 2-1 in the second, Djokovic played two sublime games that showed why he was a Grand Slam champion, and when he led 3-0 in the third set with a double break, the gamble of playing him appeared to have paid off. But he knew all along he probably only had enough steam for three sets, and when Davydenko began playing more conservatively and making Djokovic run more, it turned the tide Russia’s way. The longer rallies soaked up the Serb’s dwindling energy, he was able to be less aggressive and to dictate less, and when Davydenko hit a backhand down the line to seal his third break and take the third set 6-4, Djokovic threw in the towel.
“I had to stop to avoid a risk to my health,” was Djokovic’s explanation of his shock-but-not-shock walkout. How risky it would have been to carry on, no-one knows. There may be some who have been in war situations or multi-day treks through rough terrain who would say the human body can take much more than three sets of tennis, even when recovering from a flu-like bug. But it would be very harsh to accuse a still 20-year-old sportsman of not having that degree of knowledge about his body, especially when, having lost the third set, he felt he had nothing to gain and much to lose by going on.
The fact that Serbia can come away from Moscow having lost 3-2 with only one fully fit player (Troicki, who earned himself a 22nd birthday present by winning the dead rubber) is a fact the tennis world should note. True, Russia had its own problems – as well as Safin’s illness and injury, Tarpischev admitted that Davydenko had an abdominal strain and Youzhny wasn’t 100 per cent fit, though as that was in answer to the question “Do Serbia’s injuries devalue Russia’s win” it’s fair to wonder whether there may have been a little exaggeration for the sake of team pride. But the sense at the end of the weekend was that Serbia will be back, and stronger. In fact Tarpischev suggested that, with a more favourable draw, the young nation might even have gone all the way in the 2008 Davis Cup by BNP Paribas.
The future looks bright for the Balkan nation, even if it’s Russia who will be welcoming the Czechs in Moscow in April’s quarterfinals.
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