MAYBE I DO have an underlying agenda.
Maybe there’s some veiled message underneath it all, hinting at a cause bigger than that represented by any actual words appearing in print.
Because maybe, just maybe, everyone will eventually realise this Davis Cup squad is in position to do what none before has ever done: advance to Group I.
You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.
No seriously, I’m really not the only one, unless I’ve somehow managed to misconstrue Kevin Yarde’s most recent comments where the non-playing captain said he believes his team can beat anyone at home – twice!
You see he too had a message, just not so veiled, as Barbados likely stands to play all of its ties this year in the friendly and windy confines of the National Tennis Centre’s hard courts, including the upcoming rubber against El Salvador and a potential final match-up against Mexico.
No clay. No high altitudes. No rowdy crowds.
No problems.
You may say he’s a dreamer. But I’m not going to blame him.
I’m not sure exactly how you can either, not if you take into account what he’s seen over the last three seasons in Group II play.
To put it more succinctly, our boys haven’t lost a tie on home soil since returning to this flight, and that is following showdowns with teams that were ranked higher at the time like Paraguay, Puerto Rico and most recently Chile. Furthermore, none of them forced a meaningful fifth game. Even a fourth was out of Paraguay’s reach.
He, though, may say he’s a dreamer. But yet he’s not the only one – on the team.
Darian King looks a certain believer, not like his inspirational and downright gritty play could do anything else but make one feel that all things are truly possible once he suits up.
It’s almost as if we expect him to win every match, considering that’s all he currently does on home soil in compiling a stretch of eight successive victories in both singles and doubles.
So would it be that improbable to dream of a scenario where King gets the better of El Salvador’s Arevalo brothers again and again over the course of three days?
I mean, he already got the better of back pain and 11 sets during a similar span last weekend. Wouldn’t that make you a dreamer now too? And you shouldn’t be the only one.
Not if anyone else saw Haydn Lewis get in on the act in a return to form that almost carried King along the way for a doubles win of the ages.
And he too has an unbeaten streak of his own going, if you didn’t realise, having not lost a doubles encounter with King in this recent run of success in Group II.
Of course, booming serves, thunderous forehands and lightning-like reflexes at the net would tend to make one unbeatable force in any form of the game.
Still say I’m a dreamer? Maybe, but I’m just the only one with an agenda.
