The United States has completed its quest for a 32nd Davis Cup Tennis title with a 4-1 victory over Russia in Portland, Oregon. As VOA's Steve Schy reports, after clinching the title 3-0 on Saturday, all that was left to do was play out the string with a pair of best-of-three-set "dead rubber" reverse-singles matches on Sunday.
It was an anti-climactic ending to the event after the excitement of Saturday's victory. Top-ranked American Andy Roddick chose to forego the reverse singles, and was replaced by doubles specialist Bob Bryan for Sunday's match against Igor Andreev, while James Blake faced Russia's Dmitry Tursunov.
Andreev beat Bryan 6-3, 7-6. Bryan said he does not enjoy playind dead rubber matches and thinks they could be put to better use.
"I think the ITF should allow a guy like (U.S. practice player) Donald Young to get some experience," he said. " I think there's a lot of opportunity to give some guys some good experience in a big crowd like that."
James Blake closed out the best-of-five series by fighting back for a 1-6, 6-3, 7-5 win over Dmitry Tursunov. The United States now holds a 3-1 all-time advantage over Russia in Davis Cup play.
Andy Roddick and James Blake won Friday's opening singles matches to give the United States a 2-0, lead, while the Bryan bothers sealed the win with a straight sets victory Saturday in doubles.
