MURRAY MUST RAISE SPIRITS FOR CUP

SIX days on from the Wimbledon semi-finals and Andy Murray has admitted that he is still trying to get over the disappointment of losing to Roger Federer. The world No 3 must carry Great Britain’s hopes in the Davis Cup quarter-final that begins against France tomorrow at London’s Queen’s Club, with the home side trying to make the last four for the first time since 1981. But he sounded more downbeat than usual yesterday about trying to digest the defeat to Federer while focusing on taking down a strong French team. ‘I’ve still thought about it most days,’ said Murray. ‘The guy served at over 80 per cent in the first and third sets. That won’t happen to me the rest of the year, I know that. ‘It doesn’t happen unless you are playing someone that’s hitting kick serves and just making them, maybe on the clay court against one of the South American players or the Spaniards. ‘That’s also frustrating. It was a tough day and I’ve been thinking about it still. I’m also trying to learn from the match. When you walk off the court and then the next day, you don’t immediately learn stuff from the match. You have to look at it, analyse it a bit, look at the tournament as a whole and think about those things and see what I can do better in the future. It doesn’t take one day. ‘A lot of preparation goes into those events and you need to take the time when you are finished to analyse what’s gone right and wrong and the things you can do to improve.’ Murray took three days off before meeting up with his GB team-mates — James Ward and doubles specialists Dom Inglot and Murray’s brother Jamie. ‘I had to take some days off to have a chance to compete well here. ‘Obviously I would have ideally started practising on Monday. But I needed a few days after the last few months.’ The French line-up will be announced at this afternoon’s draw and they have an impressive list of options. Two out of Gilles Simon, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Wimbledon semi-finalist Richard Gasquet will play singles, with Tsonga likely to partner Nicolas Mahut in the doubles. A big question for Leon Smith will be whether his star player has enough in the tank to play two singles and also partner Jamie in the doubles.