French Davis Cup captain Yannick Noah is anticipating a tough test against Great Britain despite the absence of world No.1 Andy Murray.
The British team will be without their star player as Murray nurses an elbow injury, which also forced him out of the Miami Open. Instead, Kyle Edmund and Dan Evans will be carrying the hopes of their country. The two players are currently ranked in the world’s top 50. Speaking on the eve of the quarter-final tie, Noah was dismissive about his team being labelled the favourite out of the two.
“All that I keep hearing is that we are favorites, and that because Andy Murray’s not here we’re going to win,” Noah told reporters. “I keep trying to tell people: ‘No, it’s going to be very difficult.’ Evans and Edmund are good players. We’ve been doing a lot of video work.
“I can’t tell you what I saw, in terms of (their) strengths and weaknesses, but it’s going to be a very close contest.”
France has also been hit by the absence of some of their star players. Gael Monfils is out of action due to both knee and Achilles injuries, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is lacking match fitness and Richard Gasquet is recovering from surgery. Standing in for them is Lucas Pouille and Jeremy Chardy, who was picked ahead of Gilles Simon. Chardy has only played three Davis Cup matches in his career with the most recent occurring in 2011.
“Gilles has been playing Davis Cup for a long time, sometimes with victories, sometimes with difficulty,” Noah said. “Jeremy’s new but he has nothing to lose. Over the last few days, I saw that he wanted to be here, that he was ready to play. He was at ease straight away on this surface and trained very, very well.”
The British approach
The tie will be held on indoor clay at the Kindarena in Rouen, France. The first day will start with Edmund against Pouille followed by Evans against Chardy. It will be the 22nd meeting between the two countries in the tournament’s history with Britain bidding to score a win on French territory for the first time since 1978.
“The French players are obviously more attuned to clay having been brought up on it,” Briish captain Leon Smith told BBC Sport.
“But we are a tough team and we will compete really hard.”
Smith’s mentioning of the French players love for the clay comes as Evans is set to end his hiatus from the surface. The 26-year-old hasn’t played a competitive match on the clay since losing in the first round of qualifying at the 2014 French Open. To combat the issue the team has enlisted the help of 2004 Roland Garros semi-finalist Tim Henman.
“Tim just sent quite a long text to Hilts [Evans’s coach Mark Hilton] and he relayed that to me,” Evans recently told The Telegraph. “I have got to keep going forwards like I normally do – not fall into the trap of being too defensive – and hopefully that is how I will play the weekend.”
In contrast to Evans, former French Open boys’ doubles champion Edmund has won two Challenger titles on the clay since 2015.
Schedule of tie
Here’s the full draw for the Aegon GB @DavisCup Team quarter-final against France this weekend! 🇬🇧👊🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/WOZG1HDthO
— British Tennis (@BritishTennis) 6 April 2017
