"The Republic of Ireland is not a place where tennis flourishes. The reasons may be varied, but leaving the country's sports psyche aside, there are two possible explanations much easier to understand..."
We'll come to the two reasons later but those words above were committed to print in a New York Times article published on 28 September 1983 underneath a rather blunt and matter-of-fact headline: 'A Yank to Lead Ireland in Davis Cup'.
The "Yank" in question was Matt Doyle and 40 years on, the article and the reason why one of the world's leading newspapers was taking an interest in Irish tennis still live long in his memory.
The cross-court passing of time between late September and early October of that year remains the high point for Irish tennis when it comes to its participation in the Davis Cup, the prestigious international team tournament in the men's game.
It was the only year in which Ireland featured in the top tier World Group section, usually the preserve of the elite nations, and Doyle played a key part in getting the team there.
The 68-year-old, who is currently based in Kildare, was born in California and had emerged onto the pro tennis scene through the US collegiate circuit.
While he was fully aware of his Irish Catholic heritage which flowed through his Cork-born paternal grandfather, the idea of representing Ireland internationally wasn't on his radar.
That was until he spoke to a tennis player from the Rebel County, Sean Sorensen, who he had previously faced on the collegiate scene, that planted a seed in Doyle's mind at the dawn of the '80s as they played together on the old French Satellite Tours.
"We got talking about the possibility of me playing for Ireland and I had grandparents who were born here," Doyle tells RTÉ Sport.
"So back then they had a law that said if your parents or grandparents were born in Ireland, you could represent and get citizenship.
"So we looked into it and I ended up getting it done and around 1980 or so was the first time I played for Ireland."
Sorensen had been part of Ireland's Davis Cup teams since 1976. Born in the US to parents from Cork and Donegal – his Corkonian father was a doctor who did his internship at a hospital in Waterville, Maine – the family moved back to Ireland where Sorensen grew up in Douglas, Cork.
Having attended Christian Brothers College, which has produced its fair share of Munster and Irish international rugby players, a young Sorensen didn't have much choice but to take up the oval ball.
That was until he suffered a concussion in training and, encouraged by his concerned parents, sought out an alternative hobby.
Matt Doyle © RTÉ Photographic Archive
"Just down the road from us was a tennis club and I ended up then starting to play tennis," the now Stuttgart-based Sorensen recalls.
"In today's terms starting at 12 is pretty late but there was a lot of activity there. (Long-time Irish Davis Cup player) Michael Hickey used to come around in the winter to give lessons once a week at Douglas and, mind you, there were no indoor courts. It was all outdoor but I really got the bug and that's all I started doing then any time I had any spare time."
After doing the Leaving Cert, the option came up to go on a tennis scholarship to the University of Texas–Pan American close to the US border with Mexico, where another Irish player, Des Early, had gone previously. It meant he could play outdoors year-round which improved Sorensen's game, before he embarked on various challenger tours which took him to different corners of the globe. He would eventually settle in Stuttgart with his wife Helga, a fellow tennis player, and played in the men's Bundesliga.
Sean Sorensen © RTÉ Photographic Archive
His Davis Cup debut came against Egypt in 1976, playing in one doubles match alongside the aforementioned mentor figure Michael Hickey, with Ireland, whose team also consisted of Kevin Menton and James McArdle for the singles matches, losing comprehensively 4-1 in that Europe Zone qualifying round.
Irish participation in the Davis Cup preliminary rounds tended to go no further back then, until that conversation between Sorensen and Doyle on the French Satellite Tour.
"Matt said, 'I have Irish ancestors' and I said, 'Wow, let's see what we can do there' and it ended up working out with the ILTA, the Irish Lawn Tennis Association – now Tennis Ireland – that he was able to get an Irish passport due to his ancestry and ended up being able to represent Ireland," Sorensen recalls.
"That was a huge boost because back then I had been the only one who was kind of doing it full-time. Everybody else was either working or studying. That gave Irish tennis a huge boost."
The first half of the '80s coincided with Doyle's career peak. In 1982 he reached the US Open fourth round, losing to one of the superstars of the time, John McEnroe – plenty more on him later – got to a ranking high of number 65 and the following year won his only singles title at the Cologne Grand Prix.
John McEnroe may have lost his racquet in this image but he did overcome Doyle in that US Open encounter
Together with Sorensen, he took Ireland's Davis Cup fortunes into overdrive with the duo's fruitful partnership developing "organically" from playing together regularly whenever they could according to Doyle.
It all culminated in a superb 1982 run that saw them defeat Luxembourg 5-0, Monaco 4-1 and Finland 4-1 at Dublin's Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club, to reach the final of the Europe Zone against Switzerland, with a place in the elite World Group on the line for the winner.
"That was a big year for us. That was when I was playing the better part of my tennis and we usually played matches indoors at Fitzwilliam. Beating Finland was a good win but beating Switzerland was a big upset. They had some players ranked quite a bit higher than we were," Doyle says.
Ireland had home advantage for the final and for the entirety of that '82 run, something which Sorensen deems as crucial given that the surface could be dictated.
"All those four matches we had home advantage which is unusual," he says.
Doyle, Sorensen and Hickey on the win over Switzerland:
"It was a big plus because the toughest match clearly was the final match against the Günthardt brothers and Roland Stadler of Switzerland. That was the deciding match to go up into the first division and having home advantage and the support we had in Fitzwilliam made the difference and we ended up winning it."
It was an enormous achievement for Irish tennis and it meant 1983 would see them in a World Group draw where big hitters like the United States, Australia, France, Sweden and the Soviet Union lurked.
They ended up being pitted against Italy in the first round in March 1983 but unlike the previous year, this would be an away assignment in the far southern tip of the peninsula, and on clay which favoured the hosts.
It was a close-run thing with Ireland losing 3-2. Sorensen and Doyle each won a singles match against Claudio Panatta but given that former world number seven Corrado Barazzutti was a "clay court wizard" according to Sorensen and proved impossible to beat in their other two singles matches, success would hinge on the doubles against Adriano Panatta and Paolo Bertolucci, both of whom peaked at number four and 12 respectively in the single's rankings during their careers.
It was ultimately the match that swung the tie in favour of Italy.
John McEnroe with captain Arthur Ashe on the way to the US winning the 1981 Davis Cup final against Argentina who would knock the Americans out early two years later
"It was disappointing. I had sprained my ankle about six weeks before the event and it didn't look like I was going to play," Doyle recalls.
"I went to Germany and worked with this doctor, doing this unbelievably painful physio every day where they had to squeeze the blood out of the sprained ankle.
"I lived with Sean and then we went down to Italy early to practice on the clay and we thought we had a pretty good chance.
"The big result that screwed us was losing the doubles. That let us down because they had a guy, Barazzutti, who was a serious player and had been to the semi-finals of the US Open when it was played on clay for a couple of years. So he was going to be hard to beat on clay and I was never a good clay court player. Sean was quite a good clay court player."
However, as disappointing as that first-round defeat to the Italians might have been, the consolation prize was a play-off glamour tie to avoid relegation from the World Group against the mighty USA, who themselves had lost away to Argentina.
John McEnroe's arrival at Dublin Airport in 1983:
It was slated to run from Friday, 30 September to Sunday, 2 October and home advantage would be with Ireland. Doyle, who maintained a residence here, noted the growing interest within the newspapers of the time as the event approached.
But it was John McEnroe who would be the biggest draw both for Irish audiences and for the Ireland team.
Aside from being an international sporting celebrity who was at home on the front and back pages, the seven-time grand slam winner was at the top of his game in 1983, having won Wimbledon, and sat atop the men's singles rankings. Unlike some of his US contemporaries, he also took the Davis Cup seriously and played in it as often as he could.
Significantly too, his paternal side's roots in Cavan and Westmeath forged an instant connection on what would be his first competitive appearance in the land of his ancestors.
Ireland tended to host Davis Cup matches at Fitzwilliam but it quickly became clear that its 1,600 capacity would not be anywhere near enough to accommodate the demand for tickets and the decision was then made to move the match to the RDS' Simmonscourt Pavilion which usually held trade shows.
"It was a good idea, I think, to go up to stage the match at the RDS and it was virtually sold-out," Sorensen recalled of the plus 4,500-capacity at the reconfigured venue.
Fitzwilliam Tennis Club, pictured here in 1988, was not deemed large enough to host the USA match © RTÉ Photographic Archive
"And they (the USA) had the world number one with the Irish connection, with all the antics... it was perfect.
"It was definitely one of the highlights in my tennis career and it was just a really, really exciting week – not just the three days but the whole build-up. It was just magic."
McEnroe's arrival at Dublin Airport caused a stir as the RTÉ news footage from the time can attest.
The travelling party, which also consisted of three-time grand slam winner Arthur Ashe, as non-playing captain, along with a top 10 player in Eliot Teltscher and McEnroe's long-time doubles partner Peter Fleming, were put up in the old Berkeley Court Hotel near the US embassy in Dublin 4 where the Irish team, captained by Michael Hickey, also took up temporary residence.
There was a little bit of pageantry too which you can watch below, with both teams in attendance for the draw which would determine the order of play from Friday to Sunday.
Ultimately, it would be Sorensen v McEnroe first, before Doyle v Teltscher. Then it would be the doubles with Fleming joining his partner-in-sublime McEnroe, before Sorensen v Teltscher and Doyle v McEnroe and RTÉ would be showing coverage of the entirety.
Watch RTÉ Archive footage of the draw above including a short interview with Michael Hickey:
After the draw ceremony, Irish captain Hickey was in good humour, as you can see, and when the RTÉ reporter suggested that "you'd have to give the two singles matches to McEnroe", he allowed himself a smile and simply quipped sagely, "Would you say? Yes."
Sorensen had never taken on McEnroe and wasn't counting on winning the opening singles match.
The Irish team were thinking beyond that match though and had tried to stack as many cards in their favour as possible like the selection of a fast carpet surface at the RDS.
While "it was an advantage to" McEnroe too, it would give Doyle as much hope as possible to upset Teltscher and ensure that Ireland and the USA would be level at 1-1 going into Saturday.
"In the end, it paid off because Matt beat Eliot Teltscher on the first day," Sorensen said.
"I lost to John McEnroe pretty straight-forwardly. What I really realised because I'd never played him – I'd played (Bjorn) Borg a few years previous in Fitzwilliam on a different court – and playing against McEnroe, he just left you no time. Whereas Borg would just wear you down by moving you over and back.
"(McEnroe) took the ball really early. His left-handed serve for me, even for a left-hander myself, is just something not even left-handers like to return."
McEnroe criticizes a linesman's call during a 1981 match against Eliot Teltscher at the Chicago Challenge of Champions. Two years later, the two would be team-mates in Dublin
Doyle's win over Teltscher was by straight sets, 6-3 6-4 6-4, on a surface that played to his strengths and would ensure that the action would at least roll through to the final day.
"That was a big deal to get the match to be live through Sunday," he says.
"We knew the doubles was going to be very hard playing McEnroe and Fleming. They were the defending Wimbledon and US Open champions. As good a player as John was in singles, he was probably a much better doubles player."
And although Ireland did have home advantage, McEnroe had managed to sway some affection in his direction.
"It was funny. I remember walking out for the national anthems that they all do and the reception for the Americans was nearly louder because of McEnroe, who made a big deal about how Irish he was," Doyle recalls.
"The crowd went wild for McEnroe. I was a bit p*ssed off to be quite honest that they were getting such great support.
"But looking back, I certainly understand why. It was just cool to see the number one player and such a celebrity so there was all a bit of a rock star feel about John back then."
McEnroe, perhaps, wasn't as fascinating to Doyle given that they had faced each other as far back as the collegiate years as well as the aforementioned US Open fourth round match from 1982.
But their meeting in the singles match on the Sunday, which followed the US' win in the Saturday doubles, was a reminder to him about what made McEnroe such a special talent.
"It was always hard to break his serve. I never could get a handle on it," Doyle says.
"He was able to place it so well and being left-handed made it twice as hard."
With that defeat and coupled with Sorensen losing in a marathon 16-14 8-10 8-6 match against Teltscher, it meant Ireland had lost 4-1 overall and their brief sojourn in the rarefied air of the World Group was over.
Forty years on, Doyle and Sorensen's achievement remains unmatched. But let's go back to that New York Times article.
The writer had suggested two possible reasons behind Irish tennis' lowly status. One was the "damp weather" and the other related issue was the fact that Fitzwilliam Tennis Club had the country's only "first-class indoor facility".
The latter was something McEnroe himself raised when he was interviewed by presenter Mary Fitzgerald for an 1 October broadcast of RTÉ show Anything Goes.
"We have more indoor courts in my town than they do in the whole country and my town is a small place," he told her.
Doyle, in the grounds of Elm Park Golf and Sports Club, Donnybrook, Dublin in June 1996 ahead of RTÉ's Wimbledon coverage that year
"You need to have that option and England is just getting round to it now in building some more indoor facilities and it would be very helpful here (in Ireland) too. Hopefully, by me playing Davis Cup here and the United States coming, it will spark more interest in the game because it's a great game and I don't think Ireland's that far out of the way."
John McEnroe speaking on Anything Goes:
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Reflecting on what has transpired four decades on, Sorensen feels facilities remain an issue.
"I don't think there are enough indoor courts," he says, although he adds that there are certainly more indoor facilities for tennis than 40 years ago with Tennis Ireland's facility at DCU and what is now the David Lloyd Dublin Riverview which was built by Sean Barron, the Irish team's primary sponsor back for that 1983 Davis Cup match against the USA.
"The pool of players needs to be bigger and if you want to attract young people in, you need to offer them facilities that are reasonably comfortable to train in. And we have more but we need more also."
But aside from facilities, Doyle and Sorensen both point to the difficulty of attracting budding players in an environment where more established sports like Gaelic games, soccer and rugby dominate.
"It's just very hard to develop players. For a small country, the fact that we're number one in the world in rugby shows a lot of players, a lot of athletes are playing rugby," Doyle says, adding that the GAA will also take the largest bulk of potential men's and women's talents.
"It's just hard to get the big numbers and huge, talented athletic kids to go into tennis. And developing them costs money and all these things make it difficult."
There are small green shoots. Ireland's recent away win over El Salvador means they will be taking part in the World Group I playoffs where they will have home advantage against a highly-fancied Austria.
It's may not be 1983 all over again but a shock win could help a few buds to flourish again.
