GB BLOW IT AGAIN!

 

 

The last time Great Britain were in the mixer for a spot in the Davis Cup World Group was this time last year. Back then the opposition was Croatia and we faced them on Court 1 at Wimbledon. It started off with Andy beating Marin Cilic 3-6 6-4 6-2 4-6 6-3. Then Tim Henman beat Roko Karanusic 6-4 6-3 6-3. In the doubles a combo of Henman and Jamie Murray beat a Croatian combo of Cilic and Lovro Zovko 4-6 6-4 7-6(7-3) 7-5. That effectively won the tie for GB and allowed Henman to end his career on a high. Andy won one of the dead rubbers only for Jamie Baker to lose the final rubber but still, GB won the tie 4-1 to secure a spot in the World Group.

Our stay in the World Group turned out to be a short one. So now it's back to the World Group playoffs and with that, back to Wimbledon Court One. This time around the opposition was Austria, a fairly easy tie in theory given that their best guy is Jurgen Melzer and Andy beat him pretty smoothly on his way to the US Open final! However the bigger problem was that with Henman retired, we didn't really have much depth in singles play and therefore that made the doubles match effectively win or bust and GB are traditionally very inconsistant in doubles. Still, with homecourt advantage there was every possibility that someone would pull out the stops to hit the headlines.

First up, our number 2 player Alex Bogdanovic went up against Melzer. Well "Boggo" as he's nicknamed certainly went into the match full force, catching Melzer on the hop and banking the first set. Alex carried on his surge into the second set only for Melzer to come back from having his serves broken and force a tiebreak, which he managed to win. The third set started tight but Melzer was finally getting into gear and managed to complete his turnaround of the match. A fourth set was still required though but unfortunately Boggo looked well out of fuel, proving our current lack of depth and wound up losing the match 6-3 6-7(3-7) 2-6 1-6.

Next up, Andy faced Alex Peya. Our brand new world number four toasted the Peya serve at the first opportunity and though the Austrian held on as long as he could, but still the first set went to GB. The second set...well there was only one Grand Slam finalist on court and there was only one man in this set. Peya managed to at least stay with Andy in the early stages of the third set but ultimately got himself outclassed and Andy won the match 6-4 6-1 6-2. This was the Andy Murray show and the fans were glad to see it. A much needed boost for GB which levelled the tie and made it all to play for at the end of the first day with the Scotsman due to return later in the tie.

Next up was the doubles with Jamie Murray teaming up with fellow Scot Ross Hutchins in order to face a combo of Melzer and Julian Knowle. The two teams exchanged breaks of serve which led to a tight spell before the Austrians broke serve a second time to claim the first set. The GB due looked to be going glug-glug early in the second set and though they rallied back, the Austrians still went two sets up. It wasn't long before the Austrians broke in the third set either and GB found themselves swept aside to the tune of 4-6 3-6 1-6. Not exactly what the home fans had in mind and it left us having to turn the tie round in the final singles matches.

The first order of business was for Andy to face Melzer. Well Andy wound up dodging some early bullets due to possible fitness issues but came back, broke Melzer's serve and won the first set. The Austrian's serve was again broken in the second set only for Melzer to come back first with a break of his own and then a second break to win the set. The third set was a tight affair untill Murray managed to break serve at 3-3 and went on to claim the set from there. A fourth set was still required but it really didn't matter. Andy started the set by breaking Melzer's serve and finished the entire match by doing likewise, routing the knackered Austrian in the final set to win the match 6-4 5-7 6-4 6-1.

So, with the tie now level, it came down to "Boggo" vs Peya to decide the whole thing. Well credit to Alex he ran the show for the first set, breaking Peya's serve at the first time of asking and smoothly grabbing the first set. Peya went on to break serve early in the second set and though Boggo broke back, the Austrian replied immediately on his way to claiming the second set. Alex then blew the first game of the thirs set on his serve and looked more like losing serve a second time rather than breaking back before Peya claimed the third set. There was still a fourth set to play but it was here that Alex crumbled, getting broken twice early on and he wasn't able to keep a late rally going, meaning that he lost the match 6-2 4-6 4-6 2-6 and GB lose the tie 2-3.

That means that GB drop out of the World Group for 2009. This is annoying but if you're going to rely on one player to such a great extent then it's not that surprising. Instead we drop into the Euro-African Zone but hopefully not for too long, we've got a Group One promotion match coming up. That'll be a home tie against the Ukraine. That shouldn't be a major challenge, there are no Ukraine players currently in the world's top 50 and their number 2s are the sort of calibre that even Boggo should be able to beat if neccersary. Overall though the match is epected to be played on a hard court which could well meant a return to the NIA though no venue has been confirmed yet.

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