Anything is possible with Andy roaring the way

I knew James was tired so I wanted to finish the tie

IT WAS a weekend when the emotion was full to bursting for Andy Murray but, after leading Great Britain to Davis Cup victory, he struck a note of pragmatism.

The din of what is the closest he can get to a hometown crowd was still ringing in his ears as he considered the implications of a 3-1 victory over America, one that has again put Leon Smith’s squad into the last eight of the sport’s premier team competition.

Wimbledon’s host nation may not be able to raise a quorum when it comes to a volume of players in the world’s top 100, but where there is Murray there is hope. He showed that again yesterday as he held off a ferocious challenge from 6ft 10in John Isner to win 7-6, 6-3, 7-6 and push Britain into a July quarter-final against France.

Yet the Scot was cautious about whether that could actually lead GB to winning the Davis Cup for what would be the first time since 1936.

‘ To win the event i s an extremely difficult thing to do,’ he said. ‘Even with someone like Roger Federer, such a great player, it’s taken him having a top-five player in the world as his partner (Stan Wawrinka) to help him to do that. We’re playing right at the limits of our level right now.’

If Murray was merely being realistic, there was not, after all, a great deal of time for heady celebration. Such are the demands of the tour that he was flying back to London last night and then flying out this morning to Los Angeles for the season’s first Masters level event at Indian Wells.

Accompanying him will be James Ward, without whom none of this weekend’s triumph would have been possible. Murray was the star but this was truly an Anglo-Scottish enterprise at a time when such things are under threat.

Ward’s Friday night epic against Isner turned this match in the home side’s favour, just as it had done 13 months ago in the corresponding first-round match against America, when he defeated Sam Querrey.

The 28-year-old Londoner is one of those players who grows an extra three inches in the team environment, but it is expecting a lot of a player outside the world’s top 100 to keep the upsets coming.

‘We have still got a bit of work to do but we are getting closer,’ said Smith, when asked about his side’s potential.

‘ We can trouble most teams. You’ve seen the spirit we have.’

This was another triumph for Murray’s fellow Scot Smith who, in an era when big-name former players are all the rage as coaches, continues to land blows for the lower-profile professional.

For the second consecutive time he has got the better of former world No 1 Jim Courier i n the captain’s chair, a testament to his ability to extract the best from his assortment of players and his one truly world-class performer.

Murray is not only among the planet’s best tennis players, he also showed what a team man he was this weekend with his passionate support from the sidelines — both for Ward on Friday and brother Jamie and partner Dom Inglot in their epic five- set defeat to Mike and Bob Bryan on Saturday.

If there was a worry, it was that it may all have sapped the British No 1. It helped that the 7,700 capacity crowd was intent on dragging him over the line.

No wonder the debate over the next month will be whether the advantage of grass in the next r ound i s outweighed by t he passion of playing in Scotland on a hard court.

Murray was glad that, by disposing of Isner, he saved Ward the ordeal of having to win the entire match against Donald Young.

As it turned out, Ward won the first set of his dead-rubber 7-5 before pulling out early in the second set with a sore knee to make the final score a 3-2 win for Britain.

‘I knew that James was extremely tired and I knew it would be a very tough ask for him to come out and win that match after me,’ said Murray.

‘There is pressure to help your team-mates out and I wanted to try to finish the tie there. I was very emotional all weekend — it is quite draining. I was proud of the team, the way they performed and fought i n this arena under so much pressure.

‘Everyone fought extremely hard, especially when we were behind in matches. No one gave up and everyone played every point extremely hard.

‘There’s a great synergy in the team and that builds the emotion and the togetherness. It gives you that extra incentive to perform and fight for every single point.

‘ I was proud of them all as team-mates — and also as friends and my brother — and the way they played here.’

Isner was desperate to make amends for his defeat to Ward and had come out swinging in the first set, backing up his enormous serve with early strikes in rallies that were designed to prevent any long exchanges.

He forced seven break points en route to the tie-break, including three set points at 5-4, which saw him take huge cuts at Murray’s more vulnerable second serves.

What it came down to in the end was the Scot’s greater sang-froid in the tie-break, which Isner began with a double fault. That first set settled the nerves of both Murray and the Glasgow crowd and he broke for 4-2 in the second with an exquisite l ob — no mean feat against a giraffe-like opponent.

To Isner’s credit, he kept fighting on but the second tie-break followed much the same pattern as the first and it was sealed 7-4 with a swinging ace that met with a cacophony that nearly blew the roof off.

‘Beating Andy in this atmosphere ... I tried my best but there are not many people who can beat him out there,’ lamented Isner.

Indeed. It was the kind of effort from Murray that is all too easy to take for granted.