City keeps U.S. loose for final

The U.S. Davis Cup team is set to play in its most important series of the new millennium, but you’d never know it from the players’ jovial moods.

Less than two days away from taking on Russia in the 2007 World Group Final, the U.S. practiced inside the 12,000-seat Memorial Coliseum, a short ride across the Willamette River from the downtown district in the Rose Quarter area.

With the adjacent arena, the Rose Garden, hosting a basketball game in the evening, the hometown Trailblazers versus the Indiana Pacers, and the 111th edition of the “Civil War,” the annual Oregon-Oregon State college football game set for Saturday in nearby Eurgene, the U.S.-Russia clash is not the only show in town, but the stakes are much higher.

 – Excerpt from USTA.com