The fifth rubber. The one where everyone at the clubhouse bar stops talking. Chris Woodruff against Wayne Black, Harare, first round of the 2000 Davis Cup: 6-3, 6-7, 6-2, 6-4, and the United States go through 3-2 after a big scare. Tennis Majors has dug it up for the anniversary, and I read it with my stats folder open.
Context first. On 7 October 1999, John McEnroe, brand new captain, had announced that Zimbabwe would pick a surface that “will probably be cow dung”. The Zimbabwean government found it “disparaging”. In the end the tie was played on indoor hard court. Always be wary of what people announce about a surface before they’ve seen it. I was promised the dome on a Sunday, I got court 4 and its neon.
Now the match. Woodruff wins the first set, loses the second in the tie-break and comes back. That’s what interests me: intentions after a set lost in a tie-break. People look at the final score. I look at the 6-2 in the third. After a lost tie-break you have to put your patterns back in place. That reset, I do it. Not every time, but I do it.
McEnroe had brought Andre Agassi, Woodruff, Alex O’Brien and Rick Leach. Pete Sampras wasn’t on the trip. And it’s Woodruff they send out for the match that counts. The number you don’t expect, playing the decider. I know that role. In club league (interclubs, Belgium’s weekend team league) it’s often me, because the others have gone home.
The young man won, and people are still talking about the cow. Someone should tell him.
She has a point. Afterwards McEnroe ran a clinic with children in Chitungwiza, and the row calmed down. The captain got the nice last word. Woodruff had the last point, in four sets, on hard court. Two practice sessions away, mind you, I’d have won it in three.
It’s true, we checked: Tennis Majors (EN).
