Tradition Takes Beating in Embarrassing Opener

Davis Cup comes to town and all we get are the Laker Girls.

Davis Cup comes to town, the U.S. hosting the Czech Republic, and we embarrass ourselves by playing the wrong national anthem for the visiting team.

Some of us have heard about the Iron Curtain coming down and how there is no more Czechoslovakia. Apparently no one on the organizing committee has heard it, though.

There is a Czech Republic and there is Slovakia. Those two countries split the anthem when they broke apart. The Czechs got the elegant slow part, the Slovaks took the martial, bouncy part. We got both parts at the Great Western Forum on Friday. This is not a good thing.

Let Czech captain Jan Kukal explain:

“We are not very happy because in a Davis Cup quarterfinal it should never happen, that you play Slovak national anthem instead of Czech. Also, our Czech part was not played well. They should go and practice tonight.”

And let Slava Dosedel continue to explain:

“We told them many different times before that we were freed. Next time when USA comes to Czech Republic, we will play Mexican anthem,” Dosedel said.

Davis Cup is built on pomp and circumstance and we get some pony-tailed doofus yelling, “Put a hurt on him, Pete.” And then we get the Laker Girls again. Pomp and circumstance are not to be confused with tanned girls in tight shirts dancing to funky music at halftime. Oops, make that between sets.

Davis Cup enthusiasm is not yelling, “Put a hurt on him, Pete.”

Davis Cup enthusiasm is what they got in Santiago, Chile, on Friday. The match between Chile and Argentina had to be suspended. The Chilean fans were throwing cups and coins and plastic chairs onto the court. We should have gotten Bobby Knight and all we got were the Laker Girls.

Davis Cup comes to town and nobody bothers to tell the U.S. captain (that would be John McEnroe, his wife Patti Smythe, the one singing the national anthem, the U.S. one, the one we got right) or the

No. 1 player in the world (that would be Andre Agassi, bald fellow, a little twitchy, hits his forehand really, really hard) that there was a pregame ceremony. Oops, pre-tie ceremony. Tie is Davis Cup talk for match. Or game. There aren’t any halftimes, there are sets. There isn’t any overtime. There are tiebreaks.

End of lesson. Back to the ceremony.

Agassi missed the ceremony. Luckily, he showed up for his match.

Pete Sampras showed up for the ceremony. But he didn’t show up for his match.

After having promised rookie captain McEnroe that he would be available for all the Davis Cup matches this year, Sampras pulled out of Round 1 in Zimbabwe. Sampras had pulled up lame in his Australian Open semifinal loss to Agassi and limped home to rest instead of going to Africa. McEnroe hinted broadly that he thought Sampras was pulling something. Sampras was peeved that McEnroe didn’t believe him.

So Sampras, in his hometown, hitting leadoff, oops, playing the first match, and under a little pressure to make it up to his captain and teammates, had a whupping put on him. Jiri Novak, of the Czech Republic and not Slovakia, beat Sampras, 7-6 (1), 6-3, 6-2. Yikes!

Sampras, winner of 12 Grand Slam titles, stood helpless at the net, watching the match go by, passing shot by passing shot.

“I feel pretty comfortable,” Novak said, “because I beat the player, the former No. 1 player and maybe the best player in history.”

Yep, the Davis Cup comes to town and Sampras gets Novaked. That’s the same as bushwacked.

Bring on Agassi. And the Laker Girls.

Agassi ignored the Laker girls. He missed a ceremony? What ceremony? Nobody told me about a ceremony, Agassi said.

“I did what I thought was my only responsibility for the day,” he said. Which was show up for his match.

At least somebody American did something right.

Agassi beat Dosedel, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3. So the U.S. will still probably win this best-of-five affair.

Dosedel wasn’t too distraught, though. He came to Los Angeles to play Davis Cup and Slava got the Laker Girls.

As his coach, Kukal said, “Is what you did, was really to bring this Laker Girls and all this stuff? This is what we like.”

“The Girls especially,” Dosedel said.

So we get another chance today. There will be another ceremony. Maybe the band can get the sheet music for that Czech anthem. Just don’t forget the Laker Girls. It’s the new Davis Cup tradition.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com.