ANDY Murray has achieved many astounding things in his career already. Two Grand Slams, thirty five career titles, an Olympic gold and silver medal. But somewhere along the line the chance to inspire Great Britain to their first Davis Cup victory since the heyday of Fred Perry in 1936 has become something of a holy grail.
The World No 3 must win only three more rubbers, one of them most likely in the company of his brother Jamie, if Leon Smith's side are to write themselves into the history books, although he was keen to dampen talk that a British victory in this competition was now something of a formality. Britain must travel to Belgium at the weekend of November 27-29 to face a side including the likes of World No 15 David Goffin, No 64 Steve Darcis and No 81 Ruben Bemelmans, in a tie potentially played on a clay court. Throw in more than 12,000 noisy fans, an ongoing back problem and an exacting schedule between now and then which includes the ATP Tour finals in London in mid-November, and it is clear that nothing is done just yet.
"I’ve thought about what it means to reach the final, but lets not think about winning the event," said the World No 3. "We’ll have an opportunity to do that in the next match but there’s so much tennis still to go, we still need to win three matches. There’s still 2 or 3 months before the next tie and a lot can happen between now and then.
"Belgium have a player, Goffin, who’s very close to being in the top 10 in the world and it’s possible that by then he will be. And they'll be playing at home. Whichever surface they will be one that they think gives them the best chance so there’s no guarantees but reaching the final is something that GB hasn’t done for a long time and everyone in the team should be very proud of that. I'll definitely look at the schedule now and make some decisions on that in the next few days. But I’m planning on playing Shanghai just now. I haven’t said to anyone or talked to anyone about not playing the event. I’ve even booked flights to go.”
If it was down to Benard Tomic, on the other hand, the trophy should have been presented to the British team already. Pretty much as soon as Andy and Jamie had won that epic five-set doubles encounter against Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Groth on Saturday.
"I think whoever won that doubles was the winner," said the 24-year-old. "Today I had to go out there obviously believing I could win and try as best as I could play. But you're not just playing against Andy Murray here, you're playing all of Britain it feels like. So it's not easy. Every point was tough for me. His motivation and his presence changes every point. He's there on you every point. When he's playing somewhere else, he loses concentration. But he was 100 per cent today."
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