Nothing like waking up here in the U.S., flip on the tube to watch the U.S. vs. Russia Davis Cup match only to find it’s not on. Well, maybe it was over I thought, but no! After checking the internet I find it’s not only still going but that it’s 10-10 in the fifth between Andy Roddick and Dmitry Tursunov. Wow.

OLN or “Versus” or whatever that crap network is called is apparently showing that match/the tie on tape delay at 2pm ET. Nice effort. Why would anyone want to watch that live when you got taped duck hunting going on? Well done OLN/USTA. I can see why Argentina-Australia, the other Davis Cup semifinal, is not being broadcast - though i here those with the Tennis Channel could watch that live Friday.

But figuring I’m in the U.S., it’s a big tie against Russia. Our big boys are playing, their big boys are playing. It’s the semifinals. Must be on the tube live.

Not happening.

Yeah, so just show it tape at 2pm, that’ll work for fans. Like all five of them who don’t have the internet - not like you can’t get the score in advance these days…

Well I did get the score, and the fifth set turned out to be quite the cracker as they say. Roddick apparently served for the match at 6-5 before getting broken for the first time since the second set. Tursunov then had two breakers/MPs of his own with Roddick serving 15-40 at 12-13 (I think). Roddick saved the two MPs there and then another in that game to escape.

As best I could tell via the online scoring no further break points were had until Tursunov closed it out on his fourth MP breaking Roddick to win 17-15 and clinch Russia’s win over the U.S, 4-1.

The final match scoreline: 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 3-6, 17-15 in 4 hours, 48 minutes. Congrats to Dmitry for stepping on his least favorite surface.

So where was Russian No. 1 Nikolay Davydenko, who was scheduled to make an appearance today? After playing like 75 straight weeks Niko reportedly came down with an illness. Imagine that, someone getting sick after traveling from NYC to China to Russia all within 10 days. Youzhny, Davydenko’s replacement, was reportedly tired from the back-to-back Friday, Saturday play, and so enter the new Russian hero Dmitry Tursunov, the bombing blonde blogger from Northern Cal. Go figure, but that’s why ya gotta love Davis Cup.

Russia now hosts Argentina for the Davis Cup title in December. Argentina trounced the Lleyton Hewitt and his visiting Aussie squad this weekend 3-0. Don’t look for Russia to keep the sand for the finale against Nalbandian and Co. Knowing Russia, they’ll probably just put up a net and draw some lines on an ice rink. Hopefully I can watch that one…

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 24th, 2006 at 10:26 am and is filed under Davis Cup, Roddick, Tennis on TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.