Britain crash out of Davis Cup on tough night of tie-break torment
Great Britain captain Leon Smith bemoaned a “tough day to swallow” as his team crashed out of the Davis Cup quarter-finals, after squandering endless tie-break chances in a brutally tight loss to Germany.
As a team, Britain lost all three of the tie-breaks they played last night – all from leading positions and two with set points in hand – in a match where the finest of margins saw them lose 2-1. It kept them from progressing to Madrid for the packed crowds befitting of this competition.
Despite Innsbruck being in lockdown, and the Pala Alpitour arena devoid of fans, the atmosphere was electric thanks to both teams raucously backing their doubles players in the deciding rubber. Never one to hold back, Dan Evans led the charge and bellowed his way through Neal Skupski and Joe Salisbury’s rubber.
But, unlike against the Czech Republic on Sunday, the pair could not dig Britain out of trouble. The only consolation will be that they fell to quality opponents in Kevin Krawietz and Tim Putz. All four on court were ranked in the top 20 for doubles, and that flair was on show in a tightly fought, high-level match which only saw them separated by two tense tie-breaks.
Skupski and Salisbury led the first one 6-4, with two set points, but allowed Germany to claw back. Krawietz even threw himself to the ground to scoop a drop shot over the net at one point, such was the urgency on both sides to draw first blood. Eventually, Germany won the tie-break 12-10 thanks to a sublime return lob from Putz, while the second brought even more missed opportunities for the British pair,
who frittered away a 5-0 lead to eventually lose the match 7-6, 7-6.
“We were 5-0 up, we should win the tie-break, simple as that,” said Salisbury. “They came up with some good shots but we lost seven points in a row – there’s no team in the world we should do that against.”
“This could have gone either way,” Smith added. “It wasn’t to be. They gave their best effort and sometimes it’s not enough. Germany deserved to go through.”
It could well have been Britain’s final chance to play the Davis Cup in its current format, with various host cities and home nations, as controversial plans to stage the entire event in Abu Dhabi from next year are expected to be confirmed on Sunday. If that is the case, going out to empty stands will make this ending all the more disappointing for a team who won the competition in
2015 and reached the semi-finals at the last attempt in 2019.
It had all started so positively, too. Ahead of his cheerleading, Evans cruised past Peter Gojowczyk, a late replacement for Dominik Koepfer.
But while Evans’s 6-2, 6-1 victory lasted just 57 minutes, a tired looking British No1 Cameron Norrie lost to Jan-lennard Struff. Despite holding two set points at 6-4 in the first set tie-break, he was eventually bettered 7-6, 3-6, 6-2.
It marked the end of his epic 75-match season on tour, in which he has won two titles and become the world No 12. However, Norrie is not letting up in the short off-season, revealing plans to have just one week’s rest ahead of prepping for January’s Australian Open.
“Maybe after Australia I’ll take a bigger block and do pre-season then,” he said.