ESPN: Cohesive unit unites U.S. Davis Cup team

There will be banners and bunting festooning Portland Memorial Coliseum this weekend, costume jewelry for this old battle axe of an arena where the U.S. team will host Russia in the first Davis Cup final on home hard court since 1992.

A color guard will march out before the matches on each of the three days and national anthems will be sung, and the four U.S. players who have formed an unusually cohesive unit these last few years will stand at attention in navy blue and white outfits, distinguished by the supra-national corporate logos of their respective sponsors.

National pride gets top billing at Davis Cup, but there will be another, subtler unifying force on display. These players play for each other, and that connection is what compels them to devote themselves to this intense, episodic, best-of-five series that some of their peers regard as an inconvenient chore.

It was a harmonic convergence: A pair of indomitable, sunny twins from southern California, a thoughtful, late-bloomer from the New York suburbs and a brash, emotional serving phenom from the heartland emerged at roughly the same time, tuned into the same frequency from the start. Now Bob and Mike Bryan, James Blake and Andy Roddick are indivisible, with a mutual allegiance that defies the conventions of this narcissistic sport.

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