Esther Hanon
“When the Davis Cup Came in From the Cold”
The tournament trophy was paraded at Club Sportiv Progresul by tennis players.
www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/sports/tennis/when-the-davis-cup-came-in-from-the-cold.html
With rain falling on its windows, an Air France jet arrived in Bucharest, Romania, in early October 1972. People in security, holding guns and clothed in leather jackets, guarded the men that arrived off the plane. These men were part of the United States David Cup team. The 1972 Davis Cup finals were an epic drama. Tennis historians consider these finals to be one of the best cup matches.
The Davis Cup is a best-of-five contest with four single matches, featuring each team’s two top singles and a doubles match. The Romanians used only two players: the graceful and unpredictable Ilie Nastase, a 26-year-old playboy and the reining United States Open champion, and the cunning brawler Ion Tiriac, a member of the 1964 Olympic Hockey Team. Nastase and Tiriac, national heroes and clay-court experts, each played two singles matches, and they teamed up for doubles. They won the 1970 French Open doubles title on clay. Smith, who had defeated Nastase three months earlier to win Wimbledon, was a lock to play singles and doubles. The outlook was uncertain for the Americans, even if Smith won his two singles matches. In the first match on the first day, Oct. 13, he beat Nastase in straight sets.
In the second match, Gorman was up by two sets to zero when Tiriac started his antics. He persuaded linesmen to side with him on questionable calls, and he sat in a chair in the middle of a game to break Gorman’s concentration. When Gorman served, Tiriac stared at the ground to force him to pause. Gorman, fearing bad line calls, said he felt “the court got a lot smaller.”
