Fred Mullane/Camerawork USA

The Bryan brothers used their patented chest bump to celebrate their victory over Spain.

After Mike and Bob Bryan completely embarrassed Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero and Tommy Robredo 6-0, 6-3, 6-2, the US team is alive to fight another day. They are down 1-2 and will have to face two clay court lovers on Sunday, but stranger things have happened in Davis Cup before, just not very often.

Andy Roddick feels he's capable of taking down Carlos Moya on Sunday in the fourth match. If it goes to five, even the more gentle Mardy Fish thinks he has a chance against teen hotshot Rafael Nadal, who graced the cover of every newspaper in the land after stunning A-Rod on Friday.

"It's a big task but we know what we have in front of us," said Fish. "I said when we came back in the locker room that we took away their momentum. It's on Andy right now and, if he wins, it's on me. I hope we take it to a fifth match."

US captain Patrick McEnroe, who was born and bred in New York, is a big-time New York Yankee fan, but he'll take the rival Red Sox analogy this weekend. He hasn't let his boys get down and believes that even though the odds are stacked against them, the home team can be had.

"By no means do we think we're out of it," he said with a hard stare. "We didn't think that last night. We didn't think that this morning. We don't think that now. It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility to beat these guys We've been the underdog from the minute we landed here. But we believe we can do it. They know they can do it. It is possible. There's no reason why we can't come out tomorrow, if Andy can win, it's 2-all, we're in with a shot."

BIG-TIME BEATING BRYAN BROTHERS
They wouldn't have had any chance if it wasn't for the Bryans, who in so many ways are still the world's best doubles team, despite their year-end No. 2 ranking. Last September, McEnroe decided to call in the Bryans as his doubles team after they had won Roland Garros and were rising to the top of rankings charts. Prior to that, McEnroe employed a variety of singles players in the doubles spots because he wanted to make sure that if one of his top two singles got hurt, he'd have a backup singles players. (Neither of the Bryans play effective singles.) He took a risk playing the twins the last five ties, but it has more than paid off: They haven't lost a set in five matches.

They so completely dominated the Spaniards that Ferrero only held serve once and Robredo twice. They swarmed the net, mixed up their serves, returned with authority and variety and wowed a crowd that had come to bury the US team. Ferrero was frequently awestruck after he would whip a heavily topspinned drive and one of the lanky Bryans would come out of nowhere and punch home a volley winner.

"It feels good to give those guys another shot," Mike said. "Spain has to go sleep on that. Everything went according to plan. We played more doubles than they have. We exploited their doubles skills. We rose to the occasion."

Because they played college tennis for Stanford for two years and experienced the worst of opposing frat boys (the Bryans had beer dumped on their heads by crazed University of Georgia fans), the twins know how to play in front of hostile crowds. On a normal day in front of friendly fans, they might have fist-pumped 10 times, given how many amazing shots they pulled off. But on Saturday, they saved their trademark chest bump for last.

"We didn't want to break out the chest bump the first couple of sets just because they'd be riding us the rest of the match," Mike said. "So we saved it for the match point, kind of stuck a dagger in them."

FERRERO GETS DOUBLES NOD
In order to save him for Sunday's singles, Spanish captain Jordi Arrese pulled Nadal out of the doubles and subbed in Ferrero, who really has little understanding of doubles strategy. But no matter, Arrese has his guns lined up for Sunday. Although Roddick has never lost to Moya, they have never played on clay and all of the American's three wins over the Spaniard went three sets. Roddick was in foul mood after he lost to Nadal and given how competitive he is, it's a given that he'll fight like hell.

"Andy came up to us, he was like, 'Thanks for giving me another shot,'" Bob said. "I'm really confident in Andy winning that first match. Then, anything can happen in the fifth match."

McEnroe feels much the same. Had Roddick converted a set point against Nadal in the third set tiebreak on Friday, he very well might have won. He'll never be a clay court genius, but his level against Nadal was as high on clay as it has been all year.

Susan Mullane/Camerawork USA

Patrick McEnroe is relieved to have a shot at the Davis Cup.

"If he plays up to that level, he's got a good chance the way he matches up with Carlos," McEnroe said.

The big question is whether Fish has it within him to raise his level several octaves and match up with the fiery Nadal. Beyond the first 10 points of his match against Moya, he didn't show a lot of spunk and was controlled from the baseline. He needs to do exactly what Roddick did against Nadal: charge the net at every opportunity. If he can get there, he has a decent chance, because he's a better volleyer than Roddick. But he's never shown himself to be an equal competitor to his close friend.

"I would have liked to put more pressure on Moya," Fish said. "I talked to the coaches about it and we worked on taking more short balls early. We're not clay courters but hopefully we can play our own styles and mix it up. … Andy usually doesn't come into the net nearly as much as he did yesterday. He had a lot of short balls to his backhand and that's not his best shot. But the backhand coming in is my best shot."

McEnroe has nowhere near the confidence in Fish than he has in Roddick. But one other factor could play into the match should the US get there: As promising as Nadal is, he's never played the fifth and deciding rubber in a Davis Cup final. That's tremendous pressure for even the most talented of 18-year-olds. Both McEnroe and Arrese know that.