Tennis: The Cup in Decline

In his recent book, The Davis Cup, Author Edward Potter makes Dwight Davis sound like some sort of Olympian grease monkey. Potter means well:

his intent is to praise Davis for having given the game of tennis its proudest trophy in 1900. "It was as if some sage mechanic, looking over a creaking and unbalanced machine, discovered what was missing to make it run and added the one tiny cog which caused the contraption to function in a way undreamed of by its maker."

Today, Davis would be mortified at the creaking and unbalanced condition of the challenge series that bears his name. In Cleveland last week, the U.S. team won a desultory 5-0 victory over a hopelessly outclassed Rumanian club.

It was the U.S.'s 21st triumph in the 70-year-old series, and the first time in 20 years that a U.S. team has successfully defended a challenge. Such a victory should have called for a national celebration. In 1969, however, the only result is national ennui — and international embarrassment.

To begin with, the four-month-long elimination rounds were riddled with demeaning incidents. South Africa's apart heid prompted Poland and Czechoslovakia to withdraw, and the Great Britain-South Africa series was marred by riots. After Spain had been eliminated, the country's outstanding player, Manuel Santana, was convicted on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. The Rumanians, coached by wily Australian Harry Hopman, stirred some interest by out lasting 49 other nations to become the first Communist country to compete in the Cup finals.

For its part, the U.S. did not do much to nurture East-West good will. The Cleveland courts were larded with three layers of asphalt and topped with a cementlike finish, all of which made the surface considerably faster than any the Rumanians have ever seen. The tourney was also notably lacking in traditional tennis gentility. While S.D.S. demonstrators chanted outside that the Davis Cup was a "function of the capitalist pigs," the Americans charged that the Rumanians were "rude," and the Rumanians accused court officials of making "strange calls." The matches themselves verged on farce. The U.S. team of Arthur Ashe, Bob Lutz and Stan Smith so thoroughly overpowered the Rumanians that in the final set of the fifth match, with Ashe leading Ion Tiriac 4-0, the Rumanian star walked off the court without finishing rather than miss a scheduled flight to Washington.

Shamateurism. The most lamentable aspect of this year's Davis Cup challenge was that, although the Rumanians were basically a sound and well-coached team, they had no business reaching the finals in the first place. The ideal Cup match would have pitted an Australian team of Rod Laver, Tony Roche and John Newcombe against the U.S.'s finest. But in the peculiar stratification of tennis players, the Australian stars are classified as full-fledged professionals (as opposed to "players" like Ashe, who may compete for money but are not under professional contract to any organization). Last July, Davis Cup officials voted down a motion to sanction the series as an open tournament, which served to preclude the game's top players from competition and perpetuate the charge of "shamateurism" that has plagued tennis for years.