Adelaide
and
Beyond
Australian Tennis Magazine Picture of Mark
April 2000
The city of churches Looms as a critical stepping
stone in Australia's quest for its holy grail:
back-to-back Davis Cup crowns.
SUZI PETKOVSKI reports.
Only three great tennis nations - the US, Sweden and Germany pulled off successful Davis Cup defences since the Challenge Round was abolished in 1972. John Newcombe would retire happy as Davis Cup captain at the end of this year if he and coach Tony Roche could add Australia to that illustrious list.
"Going for back-to-back wins, we'd have a better chance against
Russia or Spain in the final. But I'd like to play America with Agassi and Sampras - bring on the best!" chirps the ever-confident Newcombe. "It would be a fantastic challenge. We've got some spirit going now and the more we win and the more we talk about winning, the more our opponents start to believe they'll have to kill us to beat us."
Newk lays out the final scenario in such vivid detail that it's clearly
crossed his mind more than once. It would take place at Melbourne Park, and the stadium would need to be reserved for an extra week. Why? Because over the Rebound Ace would be laid a new clay court "to soften up Sampras". On clay, Sampras becomes beatable, and the dirt holds no terrors for Mark Philippoussis or Lleyton Hewitt, both of whom have claycourt titles on their resumes.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First up awaits a quarter-final
dust-up with Deutschland at Memorial Drive in Adelaide, from April 7-9. While Australia will enjoy a rare home-court advantage (having played four of the last five Ties away), team selection isn't getting any easier for Newk. Six different sides were fielded for the last six Ties, largely due to injuries in 1999 to Pat Rafter and Mark Philippoussis and Todd Woodbridge's form and confidence going AWOL.
While Newcombe's ideal squad for Adelaide is Rafter, Philippoussis and Lleyton Hewitt, with a fourth player (either Woodbridge or Sandon Stolle) as a designated doubles starter, injury and fitness concerns continue to hover over the team. Rafter returned to singles play at Delray Beach in Florida late in February following six months out after shoulder surgery. Even if fit, he is unlikely to be at or near his best so soon. That Newcombe would still select Rafter with only one month of serious play under his belt speaks volumes for the faith that the captain has in his long-time spearhead.
Philippoussis had his early season momentum checked by a knee injury in Memphis in mid-February. An MRI scan revealed no structural damage but inflammation was a cause for concern. Weeks before the Tie, Newcombe was not prepared to hazard a guess as to whether Philippoussis would be in the side or on the sidelines. Little would be revealed until the team announcement 10 days before the Tie.
No such form and fitness doubts over Lleyton Hewitt, who has established
himself as the most dependable man in the Davis Cup side, indestructible as
the Eveready Bunny. In just four Davis Cup outings, the 19-year-old has amassed a formidable Cup record, beating a Top 10 player (Todd Martin) in his debut; shouldering the pressure of a final; clinching a Tie (the semi-final against Russia) and saving a Tie (the first reverse singles against Switzerland). He's won on grass, hardcourt and indoors. "It's all pretty impressive stuff," says Newcombe, unable to rate any one Hewitt performance above the rest.
The only thing that could derail the Hewitt juggernaut is his testy relationship with the media, which he has sworn off. Hewitt treats every match as a war but whether he can fight a war on two fronts, on and off thecourt, could be too much even for him. At Memorial Drive, if Hewitt can summon anything close to his usual Davis Cup form, he'll be mighty hard to topple. And, pity the Germans, he's playing in his hometown where he's lost one match in the last three years.
In the absence of both Rafter and Philippoussis, the grass surface makes Wayne Arthurs the logical No.2 for singles. "On hard surfaces, after our top players (Rafter, Philippoussis and Hewitt), it's a big drop down to the rest of the field," observes Newcombe. But on grass, Arthurs passes for a Top 10 player As an unlikely 28-year-old debutante in the semis against Russia in Brisbane, Arthurs performed brilliantly to win both his rubbers (against Marat Safin and world No.2 Yevgeny Kafelnikov) and so impressed his captain that Newk anointed him a potential Wimbledon champion.
The left-handed Arthurs serve is a thing of beauty and nowhere is it a thing of beauty and nowhere is it more deadly than on grass. It took Andre Agassi to end his remarkable Wimbledon run of 111 consecutive service games in the fourth round last year. Arthurs' last victim at Wimbledon was none other than Tommy Haas, the likely No.1 German in Adelaide. Haas will remember it well: he went down in three tiebreaks.
The doubles, formerly Australia's most reliable rubber in the capable hands of the Woodies, has become the most precarious. In the first round against the Swiss, having lost the doubles for the third time in the past four Ties to go down 1-2, Australia made a narrow escape by winning both reverse singles - and the team hasn't done that since 1985. "I'm glad I didn't know that at the time," laughs Newk. "I was nervous enough." Woodbridge and Stolle will be picked for the squad, but Newcombe has left the door open for Mark Woodforde to come out of Davis Cup retirement for a hometown hurrah. And Newcombe won't need his considerable powers of persuasion. "Mark and I have an understanding," he says. "He's available if needed. I don't have to coax him. He'll be there in a flash."
If the Australian team is uncertain, the German line-up, apart from Haas,
is a big unknown. Davis Cup Deustchland-style swirls with all the festering
egos and intrigue of a soap opera. German No.1 Nicolas Kiefer, who ended
1999 the world No.6, controversially ruled himself out of the team at the start
of the year This after Boris Becker walked out as manager in December, Handling the coaching and managing duties to former teammate Carl-Uwe Steeb (Becker, however, returned as a vocal cheerleader in Leipzig for his countrymen's victory over the Dutch).
As in the heady days of Boris Becker and Michael Stich, there's little love
lost indeed between Germany's top pair. Kiefer may be the No.1, but it's Haas
who has excelled in Davis Cup, posting an impressive 9-1 record in the last
two years. Haas' greater eagerness to play for his country could stem from the
fact that he has lived in Florida from the age of 12. An aggressive baseliner with stinging backhand, Haas won't be underestimated by anyone in Adelaide - especially not Hewitt, who was beaten by the German in the second round of the Australian Open last year.
The tough question is: Who will be the German No.2? Rainer Schuttler was given the task in the Germans' 4-1 first-round win over the Netherlands (minus the No.1 Dutchman Richard Krajicek), though he lost to Sjeng Schalken and was dropped for the reverse singles.
Captain Steeb may well replace Schuttler with David Prinosil, a former winner of the Newport grass tournament and a proven Davis Cup performer. Prinosil is also valuable in the doubles he and Marc-Kevin Goellner were bronze medallists in Atlanta and hold a 3-0 record in DC. But will Prinosil, the German No.4 of 1999, be entrusted with both singles and doubles?
If not Prinosil, who else? It's a long way down the ranking list to the next contenders - Tomas Behrend (No.62) and Axel Pretzsch (No.75) - and Steeb is unlikely to gamble with novices. Jens Knippschild played two Davis Cup rubbers (for a 1-1 record) in 1997, though this was before the rise of Kiefer and Haas.
It's a formidable task for the Germans but their youthful captain, 32-year-
old Steeb, has triumphed before in daunting Davis Cup assignments. As a rookie in the 1988 final, he brought off one of the biggest upsets of the modern era, coming back from two sets down to defeat Mats Wilander, then the world No.1, on clay in Sweden. The left-handed Steeb played 11 Ties for Germany and was part of his country's victorious back-to-back campaigns in 1988-89.
