ANDY Murray has revealed that he carried Great Britain back into the Davis Cup final for the first time since 1978 despite suffering from a bad back. The Scottish World No 3 won his third point of the weekend with a 7-5, 6-3, 6-2 win against Australia's top player Bernard Tomic yesterday to give Britain an unassailable 3-1 lead in their semi-final tie at Glasgow's Emirates Arena. While Dan Evans then went down 7-5, 6-4 to Thanasi Kokkinakis in a dead rubber, it means Leon Smith's side go through to the showpiece match of world tennis for the first time in 37 years, a tie which will be an away match against Belgium from November 27-29. The last time a British side lifted the trophy was during the heyday of Fred Perry in 1936.
The achievement of the 28-year-old, who made short work of Kokkinakis on Day One then partnered his brother Jamie in that epic five-set win against Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Groth on Saturday, was made even more remarkable by the pangs in his lower back which had dogged him since Tuesday night. For the record, it was unconnected with the problem to the same area which caused him to have major surgery back in September 2013.
"I wasn’t concerned about how much I had left in the tank," said the World No 3, "I was more concerned about my back. My back had been giving me a lot of trouble this week, the few days before the tie as well so that was the thing I was most concerned about.
"It’s nothing to do with the previous issues I had with my back, it’s a completely different thing," he added. "It was absolutely fine during US Open and during that stretch it was absolutely fine. Then I took 5 days off and then I practised Sunday, Monday, Tuesday here and felt absolutely fine but then on Tuesday night once I’d finished practicing and cooled-down, my back was extremely sore.
"Sometimes when you have played a lot of tennis, or any sport, then you take a break, your muscles sometimes stiffen and tighten up. Then when you come back you can have some issues. Maybe it was to do with that."
Leon Smith, the Glaswegian who has quietly guided Great Britain from the brink of relegation to tier three of Euro/Africa Zone to the final in his five-year stint as captain, stressed the team effort involved but paid special tribute to the World No 3 for playing through the pain barrier. The about turn in the nation's fortunes in this competition began when the World No 3 was making himself unavailable but it has accelerated since his return.
"It’s been absolutely incredible when I think back to how this team started against Turkey at Eastbourne," said Smith. "But when Andy is here it has just made a huge difference to us. His commitment to the team has just been absolutely incredible. He’ll play it down because he’s modest, but we owe Andy a lot for what he brings to the team. He’s been quite open there, saying how his back felt. It’s incredible that he went out there and did all three days. It really is."
Lleyton Hewitt, who has played his last Davis Cup match ahead of his retirement from the sport after January's Australian Open, joined the tribute. "You have to be a special kind of competitor to lay it on the line day in day out," said Hewitt, who is likely to be named Australia's next Davis Cup captain. "It takes someone like Andy to be able to do that."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here