Great Britain’s Jamie Murray and Dominic Inglot during their Davis Cup quarterginal doubles match against Serbia’s Filip Krajinovic and Nenad Zimonjic at Tasmajdan Stadium, Belgrade, Serbia, July 16, 2016.
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Britain will now play Argentina at home in September as they aim to keep alive their hopes of defending the title they won in Belgium past year.
Andy Murray has admitted Kyle Edmund’s form has surprised everyone, including himself, but expects his Davis Cup team-mate to soon become a real force in tennis.
Argentina, who will travel to Britain in September for the semis, beat Italy 3-1.
Murray and Inglot won their encounter 6-1, 6-7 (2), 6-3, 6-4.
Federico Delbonis avenged his first-round defeat at Wimbledon when he beat Fabio Fognini 6-4, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 in an entertaining 3 1/2 hours, helping Argentina to win its quarterfinal 3-1 and advance to its 11th semifinal in 14 years.
Judging by Lajovic’s performance in hammering Ward 6-1 6-3 6-2, Edmund will need to play at least as well as he did against an under-the-weather and out-of-sorts Tipsarevic.
Inglot had never won a Davis Cup match so it was all on his shoulders and he came through it in a tough game to hold his serve and win the set 6-4 and the match three sets to one.
Despite the absence of Andy Murray, the United Kingdom contingent destroyed their opponents in the opening set with a double break of serve to win 6-1, but the hosts showed resilience and aggression as the Brits appeared bemused.
Although Serbia were severely weakened by the absence of Novak Djokovic and Viktor Troicki, this was Britain’s first win at World Group level without Murray since 1986 and, coming away from home on clay, represents another hugely notable achievement for Smith’s men.
Edmund, a strapping 6ft 2in 21-year-old, has been working his way from outside the top 100 at the start of the year to a current 67, and one of his two Challenger titles had been on clay.
World number ten Jo-Wilfried Tsonga came back from a set down to defeat Jiri Vesely 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4, 7-5.
But the Britons saved it, then the Serbs saved one match point when Krajinovic played a great lob.
Edmund had broken serve for a 4-3 lead in the final set but dropped his serve for the first time in the match in the 10th game.
But Lajovic, who had won his earlier singles against James Ward in straight sets, at last showed his mettle to break back at the first opportunity.
Ward was not originally in the team but got the call to replace Dan Evans last Wednesday, just six hours before he was due to fly to the States for a grass-court tournament.
(CNN) Missing Wimbledon champion Andy Murray, Great Britain has found its a new tennis hero in Kyle Edmund.
“I just focused on my thing”, Inglot said after his first doubles win in Davis Cup.
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France were also enjoying their hosts’ hospitality by taking a 2-1 lead over 2012 and 2013 champions the Czech Republic in steel town Trinec.
