GB in Davis Cup shootout agony
A FAMILIAR tale of German superiority in shootouts saw Great Britain eliminated in the Davis Cup quarter-finals last night. After Dan Evans had put GB one up at a locked down Innsbruck Olympiahalle, neither Cam Norrie nor the British doubles pairing could grab their chances in two desperately tight matches. Germany now head on to the climax of the event in Madrid, thanks to a 7-6, 7-6 victory for Tim Puetz and Kevin Krawietz over fellow top-20 players Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski. Just when the GB duo looked set to take a supremely high-quality encounter into a decider, they subsided from 5-0 up in the tiebreak to lose it 7-5 amid a flurry of winners. In a marathon first tiebreak, they had four set points and saved three before going down 12-10.
Earlier, Britain had the opportunity to put the tie out of reach before Norrie was eventually worn down by a relentless performance from the huge-hitting Jan-Lennard Struff. The British No 1 served for the first set at 6-5 and had two set points in the ensuing tiebreak, only to lose the last four points after getting into a 6-4 lead. He looked weary in the decider, conceding the last four games to go down 7-6, 3-6, 6-2. First up, Evans had made light of a late switch from Germany which saw Peter Gojowczyk come in for Dominik Koepfer. Despite having prepared to meet a left-hander, Evans thrashed his opponent 6-2, 6-1.