Murray and Skupski send Britain to Davis Cup quarter-finals

JAMIE Murray and Neal Skupski were Great Britain’s Davis Cup heroes once again as a team missing Andy Murray defeated Kazakhstan to set up a quarter-final against Germany today.

Andy Murray ground out a dramatic victory over Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor in nearly three hours on Wednesday but was far from his best and said afterwards he was carrying extra weight and was not feeling good about his game.

Captain Leon Smith decided to leave him out for this one, with Kyle Edmund stepping in and stepping up in a 6-3 6-3 victory over Mikhail Kukushkin that was arguably his best performance of the season.

That gave Dan Evans the chance to send Britain through but, as against Dutchman Robin Haase on Wednesday, Evans was unable to build on a positive start against Alexander Bublik and fell to a 5-7 6-4 6-1 defeat.

With Britain unable to claim one of the two spots reserved for best-placed runners-up because of the number of sets they had lost, it was all or nothing for Jamie Murray and Skupski against Bublik and Kukushkin.

And the British pair, who had excelled against Holland, produced another brilliant performance, showing the value of having a top doubles team in a 6-1 6-4 victory.

Smith and his players can now look forward to a lasteight tie against Germany that on paper appears very tight. Edmund has surely booked his spot in the side along with the doubles pair, leaving Smith to decide whether to recall Andy Murray.

Germany do not possess any star names but have two strong singles options in the hugely experienced Philipp Kohlschreiber and fastrising Jan-Lennard Struff, while doubles pair Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies are the French Open champions.