Three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray has described the late finish to Great Britain’s tie against America on Wednesday as ‘not ideal’ for everybody involved in the event.
Murray took to the court to play his doubles match alongside Joe Salisbury at 22:00 BST following two matches that both went to three sets. With the tie level at 1-1, the doubles were critical for both teams. In what was a dramatically close encounter, Murray and Sailsbury lost 5-7 6-4 7-5 to Rajeev Ram and Jack Sock which secured America a 2-1 win.
The tie concluded just before 01:00 BST with a significantly reduced number of fans staying to watch the final match of the day. Leading to calls for the ties in Glasgow to begin earlier than the current start time of 16:00 BST.
“It would be better if they were earlier I think for everyone involved. I don’t think it’s ideal for the fans.” Said Murray.
“That match that we played there, there’s probably half of the people in there at the end of the match that was there at the beginning. It’s a bit of a shame because they missed a great match. It’s not probably because they didn’t want to stay. If you got children here, you can’t stay with them. You got to get a bus or train home. Can’t do it.”
Murray also raises concerns about fairness for the teams involved with America set to play Kazakhstan today. Glasgow isn’t the only Davis Cup event with ties starting in the afternoon with the other three venues in Europe having similar timetables.
“They’re (Team USA) probably not going to be tucked up in their beds until, I don’t know what the time is, probably 3:30, 4:00 in the morning by the time they’ve done their recovery and managed to sort of calm down after a tie like that,” he said.
“It’s not just here. We’ve seen it obviously at the US Open even just last week. It’s something that tennis needs to sort of have a bit of a think about. I don’t think it looks that professional.”
Great Britain is now in a situation where they may need to win their next two ties to secure qualification for the Davis Cup finals in November. Before Murray’s doubles match, Dan Evans fell 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, to Tommy Paul in the opening match. Then Cameron Norrie managed to get Britain’s only point by staging an epic comeback to beat American No.1 Taylor Fritz 2-6 7-6 (2) 7-5.
British captain Leon Smith concedes that it will be a ‘tough’ task to secure qualification but is hopeful that his team will be able to do so. Smith was in charge when his country won the title back in 2015.
“It’s still going to be tough because the other two nations are strong. I think a lot of the matches are 50/50, including the ones that are coming up,” he told reporters.
“All the guys played really good matches, so it will take a lot of recovery tomorrow (Thursday). It’s obviously good that we’ve got a day’s grace between our next match.’
“We’ve got a terrific bunch of players. They’re playing really well. So our aim is to qualify.”
Great Britain will play the Netherlands on Friday and then Kazakhstan on Sunday.
