Andy Murray’s class and willpower over-rode the pain and the fatigue in his legs as he defeated Guido Pella 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 to level Great Britain’s Davis Cup semifinal with Argentina at two points apiece.
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Del Potro told Argentine media after the doubles defeat to the Murray brothers on Saturday evening that he “wants to play. many years, not one more match”.
He added “Two-one down is a tough position to be in, but we are closer than we were at the start of the day and I still believe we can come back”.
Kyle Edmund looks likely to face Del Potro in the decisive rubber as Great Britain attempt to defend the competition they won in Ghent previous year, with Andy Murray favourite to defeat Guido Pella in the first reverse singles on Sunday.
Playing in front of the most excitable tennis crowd in Britain, who again repeatedly let out what captain Leon Smith calls “the Glasgow roar”, Murray wasn’t going to let tiredness drag him, and his team, down.
Gasquet looked like pulling the fixture back at two sets down after leading 5-4 in the third, but Cilic timed a three-game streak to perfection to see out the result and push Croatian into just their second Davis Cup final.
“I think we should be proud of the way we played and competed from start to finish”.
However, after his five-hour and seven-minute epic win against Murray on Friday, the expectation was that Del Potro, still working his way back into the game following wrist surgery, would take the day off ahead of Sunday’s reverse singles.
The third set happened to be the only set in which Pella actually committed more unforced errors than Murray, and the Briton managed to battle his way to a convincing, straight-sets victory.
Eurosport analyst Greg Rusedski put the potential impact of Del Potro not appearing for the fifth rubber in context when he explained what a huge boost it would represent for Britain. I will be exhausted.
“I’m not thinking about tomorrow. We had some chances but we couldn’t win”.
“I’ll be exhausted and I have to accept that and deal with it and try to play the match on my terms if possible”.
This tie came at the end of a long spring and summer in which he played in a first French Open final, scored a second Wimbledon title and retained his status as Olympic champion.
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But no answers were forthcoming and Murray broke again to win the set.
