Murray Watch Monday

On the 6th of April the GB Davis cup team will take on Belgium in Glasgow for the chance to go through to the September play-offs for the World Group. As you may remember Andy Murray did not play in the last Davis Cup tie and it seems he has still not decided if he will play this time.

He said - “It depends on how Miami goes. It’s a bit like Indian Wells – I wasn’t planning on having that sort of week. You always plan for the best-case scenario and that’s finishing on Sunday evening with a win and then you go from there. I’ll have a chat with Leon next week – he’s coming over to Miami – about [the] Davis Cup and I’ll speak to the guys next week about it because obviously the Indian Wells week changes things a little bit because I didn’t play as many matches as I would have hoped. So, I’ll see how Miami goes.”

GB captain, Leon Smith has to name his team a week tomorrow and if Murray was to play there would be another issue - who would be GB's doubles team? It would be a lovely predicament to have for once, to many players! As if Andy wants to play with brother Jamie the were would that leave Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins, Britains latest go-to team?

 

Fleming and Hutchins are ranked 8th in the race to London but it was the Murray brothers who recently beat them at Indian Wells and Jamie has been successful as a doubles player for a long time now, Hutchins explained how he felt about the issue; “We’ve been quite successful since we’ve started together,” Hutchins said, “but Andy can light up a court like probably only three other players in the world and Jamie’s been top 50 for the last I-don’t-know-how-many years. If Andy plays Davis Cup and wants to play with Jamie, I think it would be wrong to be, like, ‘no; these guys are our team’. It’s a discussion that should happen amongst the captain and the coaches and Andy and do what is best for the team.” 

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Andy Murray will also be supporting Malaria No More in their latest campaign, he will be giving away a signed tennis racket, t-shirt and tickets to watch him play this summer to whoever brings in the most sponsorship money taking part in the charity's Live Below the Line! campaign where you get by on £1 a day for food and drink between 7-11 May.

 He said "It asks people across the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia to live on £1 a day for all food and drink for five days in May. Why? You might well ask. "Well, it's to raise awareness about 1.4 billion people who live on this budget everyday, for everything, so food, drink, education, transport, healthcare, the lot. Surviving on that budget is pretty incomprehensible for most of us which is why this is such a powerful campaign". 

If you want to get involved sign up here:  www.livebelowtheline.com/uk-mnmuk

And to read all of Andy's blog on the subject check here: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/andy-murray/could-you-live-on-5-for-five-days

David Beckham has teamed up with Murray to support the use of Malaria nets.

Davis Cup Action

I have already rounded up the Fed cup action so now it's the men's turn and the results of the first round of the Davis Cup:

Spain remains top of the rankings and are on the path of retaining their crown as Davis Cup champions after a 5:0 win over Kazakhstan, even without the help of Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer.

They will be facing Austria who won over 4 rubbers and it will be their first time in the quarterfinals since 1995.

The Canada Vs France tie was shaping up to be interesting after the first day, each winning a rubber, but after Milos Raonic pulled out with a knee injury Canada capitalised with its 2:1 lead and won the remaining singles matches.

The upset of the weekend was definitely the talking point of the weekend, Roger Federer was beaten not once but twice! Isner beat Federer in the singles and Bryan/Fish beat him whilst paired up with Wawrinka in the doubles. These defeats and three others dealt to the Swiss team meant they will not be progressing to the quarterfinals, instead the USA will.

 Berdych and Stepanek, between them won the three rubbers they needed to progress and the final two dead rubbers were split, allowing the Czech Republic to advance.

Even without Novak Djokovic Serbia proved they had enough talent to beat Sweden and keep their number 2 ranking, wins in all four singles matches, played between three different players proves this.

It all came down to the last rubber in the Japan Vs Croatia tie, Japan took the first singles but Croatia responded with wins in the second singles match and the doubles, Japan fought back with Nishikori overcoming Dodig. The fifth rubber however was a pretty straightforward affair, Karlovic beat Soeda to win it for Croatia!

The final tie was between last years finalists and Germany, Argentina kept it a no fuss affair winning the first four rubbers and allowing the home team only one rubber (though it was already dead!).

Group 1 Europe/Africa GB news

Just a mention of team GB's progress, they have overcome the Slovak Republic and will progress to face Belgium, hopefully with Andy Murray returning they may be able to progress to the world group play-offs!

 

The hero of the tie was most definitely Dan Evans who defied all odds to win both his single matches against players with rankings considerably higher. Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins also put on an impressive display winning their doubles, they look set to become a successful pairing for a while! James Ward, despite battling his hardest failed to win his singles matches meaning Dan Evan's wins were crucial and the young Brit dealt well with the pressure!