The Czechs are in Spain for the Davis Cup final starting Friday, and I’m betting the first match on Sunday between Rafael Nadal and Radek Stepanek (aka “The Worm”) could be a humdinger, with a likely 2-1 lead for one team looking to close it out and the other looking to stay alive for a fifth and final match.  It’s [...]

Tennis Channel has been an absolute blessing for American tennis fans who otherwise are treated by our networks with haphazard derision.  But one Tennis Channel programming decision this week leading up to the Spain versus Czech Republic Davis Cup final starting 10 a.m. ET on Friday I don’t understand.  Why not get the rights to replay the Radek Stepanek-Ivo Karlovic [...]

There’s a Flatlanders song in which Joe Ely sings: “I thought I had died and gone to heaven/in fact, I had lived and gone to hell.”  That might describe the five days that passed for fans of American men’s tennis from the point where Andy Roddick almost took a two-sets-to-none lead over Roger Federer in [...]

I have been longing for the USTA to do something big and fantastic for the next Davis Cup home match, instead of recent choices of smallish venues in tired indoor arenas in second-tier cities like Winston-Salem, N.C., Portland, Ore., or Birmingham, Ala.  The call for proposals from prospective hosts for a quarterfinal match July 9-11 went out [...]

The U.S. will play Serbia — presumably led by Novak Djokovic — in the first round of the 2010 Davis Cup on March 5-7, 2010.  The draw was announced today. 
Because the two countries have never played, the home court advantage for Serbia was decided by a “drawing of lots.”   You can be sure it will be slow red [...]

For Davis Cup coverage and live scores, check out what in my mind is the best web site in the game of tennis:  www.daviscup.com.

The U.S. Davis Cup team will find out their next opponent on September 23 when the draw for 2010 is conducted.  Whom they play will determine where the match in the first weekend of March is played.  Davis Cup matches alternate from home and away, regardless of the time passed since the last match between nations.  [...]

There will be no Davis Cup matches in the states this fall.  The Croatian team on Sunday continued its dominance of the U.S., winning the team quarterfinal match to go 3-0 all time against the Americans in Davis Cup.  The Croats, who first played Davis Cup in 1993 after breaking off from Yugoslavia, remain the only team in [...]

Check out www.daviscup.com for live scores from all the matches, including the final day of the U.S.-Croatia quarterfinal featuring James Blake against Marin Cilic, and Mardy Fish against Ivo Karlovic.
The TV coverage starts at 10 a.m. Sunday, and full schedule can be found online at the Tennis Channel web site.

The U.S. Davis Cup team needs to win both singles matches Sunday to defeat the Croatians – if they do so, it would be the first meaningful fifth and final match for the U.S. team since 2000.  That’s when Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras teamed to come from back from being down two matches to one against [...]