Inglot steals show as GB take control
Londoner teams up with Murray for doubles win Evans can clinch tie with victory in reverse singles
Great Britain’s travelling followers struck up a chorus of The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond yesterday as the doubles partnership of Jamie Murray and Dom Inglot gave their team a valuable 2-1 lead. The snowbound streets in Ottawa, the tartan flags and the singing must all have made Glasgow’s Leon Smith, the visiting captain, feel quite at home.
But if there was a Scottish theme to the celebrations, the hero of the day was a west London boy with Polish ancestry. Inglot had spent most of the last couple of years as a non-playing Davis Cup back-up, included in the team in case Andy Murray needed a break on the Saturday. Yesterday, though, he was the best player on the court, keeping his composure even when Daniel Nestor landed a full-force volley in his groin from short range.
“If that had been a little bit lower then I would have been in real, real pain,” grinned a relieved Inglot afterwards. “It was a bit sore but that’s the way tennis goes. I think he wanted to intimidate me a little bit so I was like ‘Okay, fine, no big deal.’ Thankfully it was my service game next so it was okay.” Inglot’s excellence was all the more laudable as he had suffered an inglorious conclusion to his Australian Open. Serving for the match against the world’s top-ranked pair, he walloped the ball into the backside of his partner Florin Mergea – one of a sequence of errors that turned a likely victory into defeat.
Yesterday, though, Inglot struck the ball more and more sweetly as the match wore on. He did have a shaky early moment, on set point down, when his second serve clipped the net-cord and just limped over for a let. But that escape seemed to settle him down, and he began to dominate the rat-a-tat exchanges – which rarely moved beyond a fourth or fifth shot on this lightning-fast court – with his wingspan at the net and his sweeping onehanded backhand.
Inglot’s excellence was all the more vital because Murray was not as effective as we would normally expect, missing a high proportion of his service returns. His lack of feel yesterday might have something to do with the court, which has not been up to World Group standards. The first day featured several bad bounces and some bobbling of the surface. After emergency maintenance on Friday night, HawkEye was not available yesterday, and it was lucky that this omission did not create more flashpoints, especially with so many heavy serves being hammered down close to the lines.
The upshot of Great Britain’s 7-6, 6-7, 7-6, 6-3 victory is that Dan Evans will have the chance to seal the tie today if he wins the first reverse singles match. Originally, he would have been expecting to face Vasek Pospisil, the tent-pole on which this whole Canadian team is hung.
But the 3hr 8min that Pospisil spent on the court yesterday will not improve his prospects, especially as he has been struggling with tendinitis in his left knee all weekend. It is possible that Peter Polansky, a Challenger specialist ranked No132 in the world, could come in for Pospisil at the last minute. “Physically I have problems,” said Pospisil yesterday. “I’m playing with pain, and it’s not good for my health if I do that. I will discuss it with the team. It’s a decision to talk over with the physio: will I have the problems for next week, or will I be able to play without risk, but if there is a risk of something then it