Camaraderie and commitment have been the hallmarks of Patrick McEnroe's tenure as US Davis Cup captain, making his close-knit team's long-awaited finals triumph all the sweeter on Saturday.
McEnroe, younger brother of seven-time Grand Slam winner John McEnroe, has defied the odds to keep a team of top players virtually intact through seven years of near and not-so-near misses as the US' Davis Cup drought stretched on.
All the travails proved worthwhile on Saturday as Bob and Mike Bryan's straight-set doubles win completed a triumph over defending champions Russia that Andy Roddick and James Blake launched with singles victories on Friday.
PHOTO: AP
With yesterday's reverse singles still to be played, the US had secured their 32nd Davis Cup crown and their first since 1995.
"Commitment," McEnroe said, when asked to sum up the team he has guided since 2001. "These guys have been 100 percent committed to each other and to the cause. I mean no matter what."
"From Andy playing a week after he won the US Open away on clay ... James coming back from injury and sickness. These guys have been completely committed to the cause of playing for their country, but also for each other, and for the fans of Davis Cup," he said.
Beaming and laughing, Roddick, Blake and the Bryan twins shared the post-match stage with hitting partners Mardy Fish and Robby Ginepri.
Already drenched in champagne, they showered bouquets on each other and said the relationships they had built as a team had carried over to the ATP Tour, where they are foes week in and week out.
"I think it has brought us closer and made it easier on the regular tour," Roddick said. "I can't imagine playing with people you didn't get along with, just because we've always had this relationship and it just seems normal for us. I know it hasn't always been like that, but for us, it's just normal."
Since McEnroe came on board in 2001, the US had reached the final just once, falling to Spain on Clay in Seville in 2004.
But McEnroe said perhaps his biggest disappointment was losing to Croatia in the first round the following year, when he had coaxed Andre Agassi out of Davis Cup retirement and had the luxury of choosing the surface in a home tie in Los Angeles.
He went with a relatively slow indoor surface that did not play to the strengths of his team. Croatia won 3-2 and went on to capture the title.
"That could have been a year where we certainly could have made a real deep run," McEnroe said.
McEnroe also cited Dmitry Tursunov's 17-15 fifth-set victory over Roddick in last year's semi-finals, which sent Russia to the final and the US team home. And he recalled his players fighting through relegation matches in Slovakia in 2003.
"We remember all those matches," McEnroe said.
Perhaps that's why Roddick said this team victory was as important to him as his US Open title.
"It wasn't really a seven, eight-year process to win the US Open," he said. "All of a sudden I was on tour and it happened before I knew it. But this has been a journey. Like Patrick said, we've been to some places."
"Winning the US Open, trying to compete for Slams, you're playing for a lot of selfish reasons," he said. "To come in here and to share this with these guys and to have developed the friendships and everything that goes along with it, the laughs and the tears, it's just amazing."
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