Murray Targets Davis Cup In 2014

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 3rd February 2014

Murray Targets Davis Cup In 2014

epa03557794 Andy Murray of Great Britain enters the court for the men's final against Novak Djokovic of Serbia at the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 27 January 2013. EPA/Narendra Shrestha |

Andy Murray has never been a fan of anybody who makes ludicrous remarks simply for effect. In fact he downright treats them with total derision and so when he insists Britain’s Davis Cup team have now set their sights on winning the trophy for the first time since 1936, it’s time to take notice.

Murray ended a 77 years long wait for a British male to win Wimbledon’s singles title and he has aspirations to once more follow in the footsteps of Fred Perry by also spearheading the attempt to end a similarly long wait for a Davis Cup title.

“It is obviously a goal,” said Murray who beat Sam Querrey 7-6, 6-7, 6-1, 6-3 at Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres to secure the 3-1 win over the United States in the competition’s World Group.

“This is the first time I’ve been involved in the Davis Cup when we’ve had a chance of winning the competition. It’s going to be extremely tough, but we have a great team spirit, we’ve won a lot over the last few years. Hopefully we can keep it going.

“This is different because I can’t win a match on my own, so it was a whole team effort. James Ward had a huge win over Querrey in five sets on Friday.”

History seems to be Murray’s forte and there was plenty of looking through the archives to see what this victory meant. In the win was the first over the US since 1935 and the first on American soil since 1903. and a quarter-final trip to Italy from April 4 to 6.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve been there — we had Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski before who were top ten in the world, and they couldn’t win a World Group tie. It’s not easy, especially away from home against a very experienced team like the US.”

The Wimbledon champion insisted his in two hours and 54 minutes long victory over Querrey was one of the tougher matches of his career and he continued: “I made it tough for myself today. I changed tactics at the beginning of the third set and made the match a lot easier after that because the first two sets were tough. I lost my serve twice in the first set and in the second he was dictating a lot of the points.

“In the third, I took a bit off my serve and dominated every point when I was serving. When he had to play his service games he was a little bit tired, a little bit winded, and then it was easier for me to break.”

British captain Leon Smith, has now won eight out of nine ties since taking on the role in 2010, and now must set sights on a quarterfinal in Italy at the beginning of April. He said: “It feels amazing. You just think back a few years ago, a half-empty Eastbourne stadium, you’re about to go down to one of the lowest tiers of the division, then you’re suddenly in this environment here.

“It doesn’t get much better than this, but the job’s not done for this campaign, we can look forward to a quarter-final match and I don’t think we would have been saying that a few years ago.”

One of Smith’s biggest achievements is to get Murray committed to Davis Cup again after the Grand Slam winner grew disenchanted with the competition during the end of former captain John Lloyd’s reign.

Smith continued: “We have an amazing bunch of people. It starts with the players. I was saying to the guys earlier in the week that I think with Dominic Inglot included in this tie, there’s been 11 different players used over the last three-and-a-bit years that I’ve been captain.

“It shows that it’s truly a team effort and we’ve kept with a wider coaching group of pretty much British guys who are really passionate about British tennis. ”

Topics: 10sballs, Andy Murray, Atp, Davis Cup, James Ward, Sam Querrey, Sports, Tennis, Tennis News, Wimbledon