Britain got on the board in its Davis Cup semifinal clash against visiting Argentina with a victory in Saturday’s doubles, while host Croatia topped France in the doubles to take a 2-1 lead in that final-four tie.
Advertisement
Andy and Jamie Murray defeated Juan Martin del Potro and Leonardo Mayer 6-1, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in Glasgow on Saturday to pull Britain’s overall Davis Cup deficit back to 2-1.
The decision to put del Potro in this doubles match (which was very unlikely for Argentina to win) didn’t look very logic, but it seems he will not play in tomorrow’s 5th rubber (as Andy will nearly for sure beat Pella), which puts Argentina in a very tough position. But Evans, who is 5 feet 9, certainly wouldn’t be intimidated by the thought of having to play Del Potro, who is 6-6. “I fought for every point and tried the best that I could and that’s all that you can do”.
His brother Jamie said: “It was brilliant, from the first point to the last – the crowd was something else”. He played unbelievably well throughout the whole match.
Argentina staved off numerous break points in the third set before claiming a break of their own in the seventh game.
Momentum was with them and a set point on the Del Potro serve was duly taken with a return victor from Andy.
Murray’s 20-match winning streak at home in the competition was brought to a thrilling end after Del Potro edged a five-set thriller. I’ll be exhausted but I’ll accept that and deal with it.
“It was tough, obviously. You have to be in that team spirit, and we have a very strong team spirit”.
“I think we did really well”.
It was also his second successive defeat from two sets to one up, a position from which he has been nigh on invincible in recent years, after last week’s US Open exit to Kei Nishikori. It keeps the excitement going into Sunday.
Three-time major victor Murray, roared on by a passionate home crowd, was playing his first match since suffering the disappointment of a quarter-final defeat to Kei Nishikori in the US Open. As I said on the court, it’s a huge privilege to be able to play with Andy in Scotland and have that amount of support behind us. Once Del Potro had decided he wanted to play doubles, who on earth was going to block him from taking to this indoor hard court?
“I am so happy to be playing tennis again after three surgeries”. “I am trying to do my comeback slowly, but I did a big effort during the week and hopefully I can finish the week healthy. That happens in tennis and sport sometimes when it could go either way and there wasn’t much difference in the match”, Murray said.
“I have to be smart because this is just the beginning”. The world number five looked sharp as the Japanese pair ran out easy 6-3, 6-0, 6-3 winners over Artem Smirnov and Sergiy Stakhovsky to give the home side an unassailable lead in the World Group playoff with only two rubbers remaining.
Advertisement
If Del Potro does not play, Argentina can call on either Federico Delbonis or Mayer, while Britain are likely to select Dan Evans ahead of Kyle Edmund, who was disappointing in defeat to Pella on Friday.
