GB IN TROUBLE AFTER LOSS TO SERBIA
(Image taken from BBC)
Well it's was supposed to be Andy Murray's big weekend, but his appearances were always going to be limited by injury and illness from midweek. On home turf(the Braehead Arena in Glasgow to be precise) and the nobodies of Serbia and Montenegro as oppisition. And then Murray was out of action for the first day, Still, this wasn't World Group oppisition, the defeat in Switzerland saw to that. This was Europe/Africa Group 2 territory. No worries right?
Well the first rubber put Greg Rusedski up against Janko Tipseravic and the Serb, uused to playing on clay courts had no idea how to handle the Rusedski serve in the first set and was unable to break serve in the second set either but did manage to force Greg into a tie break where the British veteran was toasted. The match now level, Rusedski had to endure another wrestling match against an increasingly confident Tipseravic but won this one and came through a tight fourth set to win 6-3 6-7(2-7) 7-5-7-5.
With Murray out of action, Jeremy Bates had to draft in Avind Paramar for the second match. Parmar was supposed to be the third GB high flyer at one point. That was a few years back. The Serbs put 18 year old Tim Henman clone Novak Djorkovic. Parmar did OK and put up a particularly good fight in the third set but his best chance of winning the match would have been if Djorkovic had sustained an injury after a fall, instead he won 6-3 6-2 7-5 and the tie was even.
Murray made his appearance in the doubles where he paired up against Rusedski against Nened Zimonjic and Iliad Bozoljac. The Scottish hotshot didn't gt running in the first set and the Serbs banked that. In the second set GB was back in business though and it looked like a turn around was on the cards...but the visitors made easy work of the third set and the fourth wasn't a problem either. Murray swore at the umpire about a mistake in the fourth set, GB got given a peanuts fine which I'm more than happy with but I can't say I was happy with the result here, GB losing 3-6 6-3 3-6 4-6.
This left Rusedski in a must win situation against Djokovic in his second singles game. Slight problem, the lethal serve that has provided for this country's tennis fans for over a decade failed to show in it's our of need. Greg stepped up his game to take the second set only Djokovic to batter him in the third and force the knackered vereran into a fourth set tie break with Greg double faulting on match match. An embarrassing defeat really at all levels 3-6 6-4 3-6 6-7. The tie was over.
Credit where credit's due, Parmar did manage to beat Bozaljic 7-5 6-4 in a final dead rubber so a 3-2 defeat can be claimed as no humiliation but really we should have done better and our next job is to stay at even this level - Israel are coming for a relegation playoff in July.
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