Andy Murray has made a successful start to his ATP World Tour Finals campaign after a 6-4 6-4 victory over David Ferrer at the O2 in London.
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Captain Leon Smith today named his Great Britain team to face Belgium in the Davis Cup Final next week without any mention of Aljaz Bedene.
Smith said: “This is an historic moment in British tennis and I’m delighted to name these five players for the tie”.
Players on court wore black ribbons in respect for the Parisian dead and there was a minute’s silence before the two singles matches yesterday.
A Ferrer double fault gift-wrapped the set for Murray and the Scot should have felt confident of finishing the job having won all 59 of his matches after taking the first set this year.
Britain have not won the Davis Cup since 1936 and last appeared in the final in 1978 when they lost to the U.S.
Both players had chances to break in the first set, but positive play from both delayed any chance of a breakthrough.
Ferrer bounced back immediately, breaking Murray to love en route to a 2-0 lead in the second set.
The pressure was mounting on Ferrer and again it told in the 10th game as Murray clinched his first match point with a leaping smash.
Nadal was making his return to the tournament after missing past year to recover from appendix surgery and he found himself up against the man who beat him at the Paris Masters a fortnight ago.
Rafael Nadal’s late-season resurgence continued at the ATP World Tour Finals when he beat wayward French Open champion Stanislas Wawrinka 6-3 6-2 to open his account on Monday.
Both Murray brothers are certainties for the team and, after winning his opening match at the ATP World Tour Finals in London, Jamie backed Bedene’s claims. “Seems like whoever takes charge of the baseline, and if you can not serve your way out of trouble often enough, which is hard to do here because of the pace of the court, the guy from the baseline wins, the better one”.
On paper, Belgium are weaker than any of Britain’s previous opponents this year – USA, France and Australia – although in world number 16 David Goffin they have a strong number one. I think I played a solid match.
But he was back in the groove against Ferrer, who had to save three break points early in the first set.
“If I didn’t play here, I would have gone three weeks or something without playing a match”, he said.
He says “I think everybody right now is concerned about things”.
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The manner of Wawrinka’s defeat was surprising given the performances of the Swiss this year in winning a career-high four titles, compared to Nadal, whose streak of winning at least one Major a year came to an end in 2015.
