Joe’s a Brit of all right
Salisbury learns fast in Davis Cup
Joe salisbUry helped guide Great britain into the quarter-finals of the Davis cup after getting a crash course in the competition’s unusual demands over the weekend.
The 29-year-old londoner is arguably the world’s best doubles player at present, but such status rarely counts for much in the uniquely pressurised circumstances found wearing the national jersey.
Having lost on his debut against France on saturday, he and Neal skupski put a firm hand on the tiller when faced with a deciding rubber against a highly-motivated czech republic unit.
They defeated jiri vesely and Tomas Machac 6-4, 6-2 — meaning Gb stay on in locked-down
innsbruck to face Germany in the last eight tomorrow.
victory would see them go immediately on to Madrid for the climax of the event, with the assumption that they will be able to by-pass any new covid restrictions.
salisbury had looked edgy on saturday and there could be no repeat of that this time if leon smith’s team and its large back-up staff were not to return home early after the group stage.
The world doubles No3 admitted that even such feats as winning the Us open had not entirely prepared him for the new environment of the team competition.
‘it’s definitely different and i felt it yesterday,’ he admitted. ‘Going into the match today, i think it helped a lot having the experience, even from yesterday, because it is a very new thing playing for your country and my first time playing Davis cup tennis.
‘This is obviously different for everyone, it’s strange having an empty stadium but then a very loud bench, which is great. you feel all the support from the rest of the team.
‘i didn’t play my best yesterday but i think we learnt some stuff from that.
‘knowing we had to win, i think that helped us, fired us up, helped us produce a really good performance.’
once vesely had been broken at 4-4 in the first set, delivering two double faults, passage looked reasonably safe for the brits.
Davis cup tennis is rarely predictable and after a shock defeat for Dan evans, the Gb team were flirting with danger when cam Norrie was pulled back to a set all by world No 138 jiri lehecka.
only then did Norrie assert his class to notch his 52nd win of the season, pulling through 6-1, 2-6, 6-1.
The czechs are far more proficient in women’s tennis than they are in men’s, but they were well prepared — as evans found out.
He went down 6-2, 7-5 to 21-year-old Tomas Machac, normally to be found on the challenger circuit with his ranking of 143 more than 100 places below where the british No 2 resides.