Miracles do not happen every time

Published : Nov 03, 2001 00:00 IST

NIRMAL SHEKAR

IT was a lovely day. The early afternoon showers had cleared and a benevolent sun was shyly peeking through the transparent, low-hanging milky white clouds that were rushing across its face.

Outside the Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem (North Carolina) on that Sunday evening, sipping Brazilian coffee from a huge paper cup, the old man grinned and offered his hand.

"Great show," he said. "That Paes is a lovely player. This has been a great weekend here. After all that's happened in this country..." his breaking voice trailed off.

Then, moments later, the old man said, "You know, my wife said the other day that it's ridiculous to go and watch a sports event when the country has been traumatised. But I think sport is the answer. I wish George Bush and Osama bin Laden sorted out their differences on a tennis court."

Ah, what a dream! If only that could happen!

As trivial, insignificant and meaningless as sport might appear in times like this, strangely enough it is exactly in such a period that sport seems all the more glorious.

For, the harsher the reality of everyday life, the greater the healing power of sport. For sport is, in many ways, the exact opposite of reality. You fight, yet you don't fight... in the sense of spilling blood and losing lives. You lose, yet you don't lose... in the context or losing near and dear ones, or even your own life.

In the event, as ill-timed as the India-United States World Group qualifying round Davis Cup tie played at Winston-Salem - even as state-of-the-art American war planes were pounding Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan - from October 12 to 14 may have seemed, the few thousand people who came in to watch the matches were none the worse for it.

The local organisers put on a wonderful show, at least two of the five rubbers were superbly competitive and, most of all, the aces and volleys were fired in an atmosphere of commendable camaraderie and good spirit.

If the United States team led by Patrick McEnroe was thrilled with its 4-1 success, something that saw the team retain its place in the World Group, then the real victor in the three-day event was sport itself.

This may not be enough consolation to an Indian team which travelled a long way in difficult times to try and attempt to get back in the elite group in which it last appeared in 1998. But the point is, given the firepower in its command, India was not expected to win.

With one good singles player with a knack of climbing an invisible ladder in Davis Cup play and one great doubles team it would take a miracle to get into the big league and stay there in a sport that is more intensely competitive now than ever before.

And miracles of the sort that the inimitable Leander Paes authored on a grass court in Delhi in 1995, when he beat Goran Ivanisevic in the critical fourth rubber, to help India qualify for the World Group, do not happen every year.

In the event, no matter the splendid victory in the doubles rubber in which Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi beat the second best team in the world, Jared Palmer and Don Johnson, in four sets, and notwithstanding a tremendous effort from Paes in the fourth rubber when he stretched the red-hot Andy Roddick, India was well and truly beaten.

It had taken an extraordinary effort from Paes at Tokyo last April to earn India a shot at the United States. On that occasion, at the Ariake Stadium, Paes had beaten Takao Suzuki in five sets in the fourth rubber, coming back from two sets to one down. But Roddick and the United States were entirely a different cup of tea, so to say.

At Winston-Salem, Paes was a touch rusty at the start. He had not played tennis in five weeks going into the tie and the last competitive singles match he had played was at Wimbledon last June.

It was obvious from the second rubber on the opening day, which Paes lost in straight sets to the debutant James Blake, that the Indian was suffering from lack of match-sharpness.

"Lack of matchplay really showed today. I had my chances and I didn't take them. But James was really sharp. I lost to a better player on the day," said Paes.

Paes' loss left India staring down the barrel, after Harsh Mankad, playing the opening singles, had posed Roddick a problem or two at the start before going down in straight sets.

Mankad, an attractive little player without a single big weapon, mixed things up rather well early in the match and it was only in the third set that the huge difference in class between the two players was obvious. "I was surprised. I thought he played pretty well. He had no pressure, all the pressure was on me," said Roddick after his first Davis Cup victory in a live rubber.

Talking of surprises, nobody who has followed the fortunes of Bhupathi and Paes would have been the least bit surprised on the second day of the tie when the two acknowledged champions played one of their better matches outside the country in Davis Cup play to get past Palmer and Johnson in four tough competitive sets.

The opening day's match had helped Paes groove his game and he was certainly sharper on the second day, serving intelligently, returning well and, most of all, taking charge at the net as he always does with great relish. As for Bhupathi, he had made the final of the Moscow event the week before in the company of Jeff Tarango and he looked as sharp as he may have ever appeared in a Davis Cup doubles rubber. Some of the return winners that Bhupathi played were stunning.

"Mahesh hit some unbelievable returns. Leander is athletic and brings a lot of energy to the court. They combine as well as any team. That is what makes them great," said McEnroe.

It was the Indian pair's second successive victory over Palmer and Johnson. Bhupathi and Paes had beaten the Americans at Monte Carlo in April this year. This victory also helped the Indian team preserve their five-year unbeaten record in Davis Cup. The last time they were beaten in Cup play was in Kolkata in 1996 when the Swedes, Jonas Bjorkman and Nicklas Kulti, got past them.

"They were a little too solid for us and they combined that with some incredible shotmaking," said Palmer who carried the U.S. team as well as he could as the 33-year-old debutant, Johnson, was a touch nervous. About the only time in the match when the Indians were under the threat of losing their control over it was late in the fourth set when Bhupathi was broken serving for the match. But the Indian pair came back strongly to close out the match in the tiebreaker.

As ever, Paes reserved his best for the last and Roddick was pushed to a corner for almost an hour in the fourth rubber on the third day. "How much energy do you have left for tomorrow?" an American reporter has asked Paes after the doubles tie. The Indian Cup hero smiled. Then he said, "Davis Cup? A new pair of legs tomorrow."

But it was the patented, old spirit, really, as Paes chipped and charged with tremendous skills and courage to take the first set from a 19-year-old who is world ranked No.15 and was a quarterfinalist at the U. S. Open.

"Nobody plays the kind of shots Leander plays. Nobody in the game does it. He has the best set of hands I've seen on any player," said Roddick. "He came out and just tried to totally take me out of my game."

Then again, to his credit, Roddick put the pieces back together in some style even as Paes briefly took his foot off the pedal, although the Indian did have his chances in a very, very close fourth set.

"The biggest positive from today is that I proved to myself that I have a lot of singles left in me," said Paes. "I really took the match to Andy. But the difference, in the end, was his serve."

And the difference, from beginning to end, between India and the United States was represented by the depth of the two teams. Even in the absence of two of the greatest players of all time - Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi - the United States proved that it was a team that could go a long way in the competition next year.

Then again, if the Americans have a lot to cheer when it comes to their young guns, what of India? Our young ones are still struggling to win a few rounds in the third rung of the sport, the Futures events.

And, as for the future, it is perhaps time for Ramesh Krishnan, the Indian non-playing captain, to give someone like Sunil Kumar a chance. He can do no worse than the ones that have played second singles for the country in recent times.

The scores: United States beat India 4-1 (Andy Roddick bt Harsh Mankad 6-3, 6-4, 6-1; James Blake bt Leander Paes 7-5, 6-3, 6-3; Jared Palmer and Don Johnson lost to Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi 4-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-7 (6); Roddick bt Paes 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5; Blake bt Mankad 6-3, 6-0).

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