I don’t write about myself that much. But this year I’m making some exceptions. The AC “A” Board announced that I’ll be inducted into the Austin College Hall of Honor in the summer of 2025. My sport is tennis, and Legends Weekend 2025 is igniting a bunch of Marc tennis stories. Here’s one:
This summer for Marc is all about two things: Sweden & Tennis. I’ll spend June near Gothenborg, Sweden reuniting with friends from my Fletcher School of International Affairs. Then it’s off to Austin College in July for a Hall of Honor induction for tennis. These two summer highlights sound like a good excuse for a Marc story about Sweden & Tennis.
Alex O’Brien of Amarillo, Texas was the best I ever played. While I’m quite proud of my #73 junior ranking in Texas, kids at my level couldn’t hold a candle to top ranked players like Alex O’Brien. I faced O’Brien in the first round of a 1988 doubles tournament in Austin. He and his partner made quick work of us as we battled for as many games as possible. We got three of them, losing 6-2, 6-1.
I spent the early 1990s at Austin College, where I earned First Team All-Conference honors and the school’s tennis MVP award. O’Brien spent the early 1990s at Stanford, where he pulled off the triple crown: after leading Stanford to the NCAA team championship, O’Brien earned NCAA individual titles in both singles and doubles.
I spent the mid-1990s at the Fletcher School of International Affairs, where I met some exceptional friends I’ll see next month near Gothenberg. O’Brien spent the mid-1990s as a tennis professional, with a specialty in doubles. He won 13 doubles titles, including the 1999 US Open. By 2000, Alex O’Brien was the #1 ranked doubles player in the world.
So, it was not a shock that the United States asked O’Brien to play Davis Cup.
Davis Cup is the tennis competition among nations that includes a frequently pivotal doubles match. In 1997, O’Brien was recruited for his doubles skills to join an American team that included Pete Sampras and Michael Chang. An O’Brien win in round #1 propelled Team America over Brazil; subsequent victories over the Netherlands and Australia landed the U.S. in the finals against Sweden. The matchup took place at the Scandinavium Arena in Gothenburg, Sweden.
It was not the first Davis Cup Final between the Americans and the Swedes in Gothenberg. In 1984, an outstanding US team led by John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors took the Americans all the way to the finals. But waiting for the US at the Scandinavium Arena were the Swedes. And if you played tennis in the 1980s like Marc, then you already know. The. Swedes. Know. Tennis.
Bjorn Borg was the top player in the world when I first picked up a racquet. In Borg’s footsteps came the incredible Swedes of a 1984 Davis Cup team led by Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg, and Anders Jarryd. Edberg & Jarryd defeated McEnroe & his partner in the pivotal doubles match in Gothenberg, allowing the Swedes to capture the 1984 crown.
The 1997 Swedish team, led by Jonas Bjorkman, Magnus Larsson, and Thomas Enqvist, was formidable as well. But the Americans hoped for a better result than 1984 with Sampras, Chang, and O’Brien leading the way. From an article headlined “Davis Cup Would Cap Another Great Year for Sampras:”
“Eight tournament victories, two Grand Slam titles, and a fifth straight year as the world’s No. 1 player. What else is left for Sampras to accomplish in 1997? Winning the Davis Cup, that’s what. Completing the American team [after Chang] are Todd Martin and doubles specialist Alex O’Brien.”
As the US team prepared for the trip to Gothenberg, O’Brien decided to play one final tournament before departure. It was a mistake. From an article headlined “Stark to replace O’Brien on U.S. Davis Cup Team:”
“Jonathan Stark will replace injured Alex O’Brien on the U.S. Davis Cup team that will play Sweden [this week] for the tennis trophy. Tom Gullikson, captain of the U.S. team, announced the change after O’Brien was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his foot, sustained while playing in the ATP Tour World Doubles Championships last week.”
And so, the 1997 Davis Cup Final took place in Sweden without O’Brien in the lineup. Sweden defeated the Americans, repeating their success in 1984. Alex O’Brien’s doubles replacement lost his match, a match which clinched the title for the Swedes. From an article headlined “Sweden Takes Doubles to Win [Davis Cup] Championship:”
“With a makeshift U.S. doubles team helpless on the Scandinavium court, Sweden captured the final point it needed to claim the championship yesterday afternoon. Jonas Bjorkman and Niklas Kulti defeated Americans Todd Martin and Jonathan Stark to give Sweden its sixth Davis Cup title. Bjorkman fired home an ace on Sweden’s first match point, then jumped into Kulti’s arms as the home crowd broke into a celebratory howl.”
The Parrish family will be headed to Sweden next month for a Fletcher School reunion. We’ll fly into Copenhagen, before taking the train to Gothenberg and getting off just a few stops before the site of the 1997 Final. Our Swedish host and Fletcher classmate, Bjorn Gillsater, shares a name with the greatest Swede in tennis history.
Bjorn, thank you for hosting and we’ll see you soon. As Dianne and I enjoy a reunion over Swedish schnapps and herring, I’ll be thinking about how the best tennis player I ever faced came this close to battling Sweden for a Davis Cup title in a town just a short drive from our Fletcher celebration.
