Andy Murray put Great Britain on the brink of a second Davis Cup final in as many years after defeating Argentina’s Guido Pella 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 on Sunday to tie their semi-final at 2-2.
Advertisement
Evans would have expected to face Juan Martin del Potro, conqueror of Murray in five hours on Friday, but the former US Open champion hinted on Saturday he was not prepared to risk his fragile body.
After losing a five-set epic to Juan Martin del Potro on Friday all Murray could do was tie Great Britain and Argentina at two rubbers each, but securing a place in a second final in successive years was out of his hands, and eventually proved beyond Dan Evans.
Yet Argentina shocked Great Britain 3-2 to enter the Davis Cup finals against Croatia who won against a weakened France.
Argentina, finalists four times in the past 10 years, will be looking for its first ever victory in the famous team competition. Would Murray have won the French Open had he not played the Davis Cup tie against Japan?
In other results, Jan-Lennard Struff defeated Hubert Hurkacz 7-6 (4), 6-4, 6-1 to preserve Germany’s World Group status with a 3-2 win over Poland in their playoff.
The victor will play either France or Croatia in the final.
Dan Evans could not complete the comeback though as he lost the decider to Leonardo Mayer, ending Britain’s reign as Davis Cup champions.
Mayer dropped just six first-serve points after falling behind Evans by a set, and he struck 31 winners on the day against just 20 for Evans.
“We’ve had an unbelievable run in this competition over the last couple of years”, Smith told BBC Radio 5 live.
Earlier, Murray had forced a fifth rubber with a straight-sets win over world number 49 Pella in two hours and 11 minutes despite not being in peak physical shape after his exertions over the previous two days. That was worrying for me but I managed to get it done in straight sets thankfully.
Evans, who has two decisive rubbers amongst his four Davis Cup singles wins, gave the home crowd something to cheer early on as he claimed an early break of serve on his way to winning the first set.
Smith said: “Whether he’ll play next year is not something I have thought about”.
“I am very emotional”, said Mayer, whose ranking has slipped from 21 to 114 in the world.
He said: “I had a few chances just to sort of get into the match to be honest”.
He added, “I knew I was going to be in some pain this weekend and I spoke to my team about that it was going to be really hard”. I need a break.
“Leonardo’s match was something we believed could happen but I think it was a great effort on his part”.
Advertisement
But Mayer was quick to up his level and he played pretty much flawless tennis in the final three sets, leaving Evans very little room to make an impact on the proceedings.
