Saw the Davis Cup final live (Espan~a vs. USA, last match being Moya vs. Roddick) from the stadium in Sevilla. I've never seen better crowd atmosphere for a tennis match. Somehow, when it's a country vs. country with an emotional home crowd fully being behind one team, it makes for a lot of fun to watch. http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news;_ylc=X3oDMTBpb3M3YzRkBF9TAzk1ODYyNTg0BHNlYwN0bQ--?slug=ap-daviscupfinal&prov=ap&type=lgns After having watched the Ryder Cup earlier in the year, it's just my general observation that it's not in the culture of American professionals to take national teams very seriously. Whenever it is USA vs. another country in such events, the American players mostly seem to be going through the motions.
Depends what sport you're talking about. I love Davis Cup, but tennis and golf probably aren't the best examples of national teams - they're individual sports and for any pro (regardless of nationality), odds are it's going to be a bigger honour for them to win at Wimbledon or Augusta than it is to take home the Davis or Ryder Cups.
I realize that. But just to see the celebrations of these "teams" (both Ryder Cup win by Europe - mostly crazy Irish people celebrating, and the Spaniards today), you get the feeling how much they care about it. The American players have always seemed aloof and emotionless. There were also similar complaints about the US national team of basketball in the olympics. The general complaint is, American professionals just don't have the passion (or even a traditional concept) for wearing a national team jersey. Often times, these teams are assembled on an ad-hoc basis few months before the tournament(s), termed "Team USA", coaches chosen on an ad-hoc basis, and disbanded soon thereafter. There is no sense of continuity. This is not true in Association Football, of course. BTW, there are pictures here: http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/gallery;_ylc=X3oDMTBpb3M3YzRkBF9TAzk1ODYyNTg0BHNlYwN0bQ
It may be an unfair generalisation, but I have always been of the view that the US excels more at producing brilliant individual athletes than brilliant teams. This is not to say that the US doesn't produce great teams (the original basketball 'Dream Team', for example) but it seems that even these are more a result of the sum of their parts - a team of champions rather than a champion team, if you will. When I think of American sport I think of outstanding individuals - Carl Lewis, Tiger Woods, Andre Agassi, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth. Again, the US Soccer team seems to be the exception.
Talking tennis, most teams and countries are more into the Davis Cup than the US. But the indivuals may not necessarily care, specially in the US. Usually, most of the better US players do not play. But this is not exclusive to the US. The bottom line, though, is that US sports (all of them) have been pretty much isolationist from the beginning (soccer, and possibly hockey, being the exceptions), the exceptions being the Olympics, with until recently, we have tended to dominate. But even then, sports like tennis are not team in the Olympics - they are individual.