World Tennis Magazine

Unique Tennis Perspectives

Home » The only time the USA has come back from 0-2 down in Davis Cup

The only time the USA has come back from 0-2 down in Davis Cup

by

The Wimbledon final that never was

The United States Davis Cup team finds itself in an extremely uncomfortable situation down 0-2 after the first day of play against Spain in the Davis Cup quarterfinal in Austin, Texas. History does not bode well for Captain Jim Courier’s team as the USA has comeback from 0-2 down only once in the history of the competition, dating back to 1900.

Sidney Wood, a member of the 1934 US team that turned the 0-2 comeback win trick versus Australia in London, discusses the comeback and his second bout of “adrenaline” in his new posthumously published memoir THE WIMBEDON FINAL THAT NEVER WAS ($15.95, New Chapter Press, available here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0942257847/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=tennisgrancom-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0942257847&adid=1KPK76QC5YHQ58MRDDP0&

The excerpt is found below…

The second time for me was in a Davis Cup match at Wimbledon in 1934 against the Aussie great Jack Crawford, then the world’s No. 1, who the previous year was one set shy of becoming the first player to win a Grand Slam after losing a five-set final to Fred Perry at the U.S. Nationals. I won the first two sets when the rains came and put us over for the next day. Sounds great continuing with such a lead? Forget it. A front-runner knows that he may not carry his winning form into the next day, also that any top-level opponent who’s behind invariably plays tougher.

The following morning, Jack couldn’t miss and suddenly I’d dropped two 6-4 sets and we were even up – except that I was also down love-two and love-forty on my serve and about to blow America’s whole Davis Cup year. Then again, that unreal, giddy feeling enveloped me, and this time I had at least some inkling of what might occur. With aces seemingly on call and my game under its errorless, hypnotic influence, I reeled off six virtually uncontested games for perhaps the most critical win of my career. That win over Jack, coupled with Frank Shields’ subsequent 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 win over Viv McGrath capped our U.S. team’s comeback from 0-2 down against the Aussie team – the first and only time to date that a U.S. Davis Cup team has come back from the brink to win a best-of-five match series.

Filed Under: HEADLINES AND FEATURES, Top Stories Tagged With: , , , ,

How To Try To Prevent More Late-Night U.S. Open Matches

By

By Randy Walker @TennisPublisher New York Is known as the “City That Never Sleeps” and that certainly was the case at the 2024 U.S. Open…again. Despite verbalizing some efforts to help prevent matches running late, the U.S. Tennis Association, unfortunately, experienced another year where matches extended passed 1 am and 2 am. The 2024 tournament […]

A Look Back At The U.S. Open’s Most Epic Day

By

by Randy Walker @TennisPublisher “Imagine John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors playing a U.S. Open semifinal match and in the fifth set, the stadium is only like half full?” This is what former New York Post reporter Ray McNulty said 40 years after covering the most famous single day in the history of the U.S. Open, […]

The Greatest Shot In U.S. Open History

By

by Randy Walker @TennisPublisher It’s the greatest single shot hit in the history of the U.S. Open. Sure, there have been shots hit behind the back, throw the legs, with their back turned to the net and shot around the post at the U.S. Open, but under the circumstances, the Jimmy Connors passing shot from […]