An octogenarian-aged streak is on the line for the U.S. Davis Cup team starting Friday in Winston-Salem.  Not since 1927, when France’s famed Four Musketeers bested the American team of “Big Bill” Tilden and “Little Bill” Johnston, has the French team won in the U.S.  That 1927 win, in fact, remains the only French victory in the states.

            The two teams first played the first of fourteen team matches in 1905, and 103 years later are deadlocked at 7-7.  The U.S. won the first four matches played between the two countries, including consecutive years in 1925-1926 at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia.  In 1927, before 15,000 fans, Tilden won his opening match against Henri Cochet and, although Johnston lost to Rene “The Crocodile” Lacoste, the next day Tilden and Frank Hunter won the doubles to give the U.S. a 2-1 lead.  But on the final day, the Crocodile beat Tilden and Cochet bested Johnston in the decisive fifth match.

            The following year the U.S. team headed by Tilden traveled to Paris and played in the newly-built Roland Garros stadium, home, of course, to the French Open, and lost again, this time 4-1.  The French team repeated wins over the U.S. at Roland Garros the following three years, ultimately winning five years in a row (1927-1932) over the U.S. in Davis Cup finals.

            It was half a century before the two countries played again.  The U.S. and France did not meet until 1982, and the U.S. holds a 3-2 lead in the modern era.  In the 1982 matchup the John McEnroe-led team overcame the French in Grenoble, France, winning the first three matches in that year’s Davis Cup final.  Most notable was the opening match in which McEnroe beat Yannick Noah 12-10, 1-6, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.  McEnroe and doubles partner Peter Fleming sealed the win.

In four team meetings since, it has been all home court victories, with the U.S. winning in San Diego in 1989 and St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1995. 

French victories include the 1991 epic win over the U.S. in the Davis Cup final match in Lyon, France, on indoor carpet and not red clay.  The U.S. team consisted of seemingly unbeatable singles lines of Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, but although Agassi won his first match against Guy Forget (currently France’s team captain), Sampras lost both of his matches, first to Henri Leconte and then the deciding match to Forget. Combined with the doubles loss by Americans Ken Flach and Robert Seguso to Forget and Leconte, the French took the cup with a 3-1 win.  

France won the last meeting between the two teams 3-2 in September 2002 on the slow red clay of Roland Garros, when the U.S. team could not manage a singles win when it counted, with team leader Andy Roddick losing four set matches to Arnaud Clement and the deciding match to Sebastian Grosjean.  James Blake, who lost his opening match against Grosjean in four sets, teamed with Todd Martin to win the doubles in five sets against Michael Llodra and Fabrice Santoro.  After Roddick’s second loss, Blake added a meaningless U.S. point by beating Clement in the futile fifth match.

This weekend, Roddick and Blake again lead the U.S. team in the singles lines.  From the 2002 French team, the only returning player could be Clement, although it is very possible he might be left off this weekend’s final roster to be officially announced Thursday (he was not among the initial team nomination).  If Forget includes Clement, it would most certainly be at doubles with his partner Michael Llodra and not in singles.