Henman tips GB to handle Murray blow

TIM HENMAN got an abrupt introduction to the joys of team management and coaching immediately after touching down in Sydney. No sooner was he off his 24-hour flight than he was dealing with Andy Murray’s withdrawal from the British team he’s captaining at the inaugural £12million ATP Cup which begins on Friday. A quick scramble and Great Britain veteran James Ward was recruited as a replacement. Murray deciding late on against travelling, apparently due to pelvic bruising that has failed to clear sufficiently, did not come as a total surprise. Henman said: ‘I had been in contact with Andy during December so I knew it was going to be difficult for him to be ready in time. We will miss him but, after what he’s been through, the last thing he should do is rush.’ One aspect of this event is that the coach is chosen by the respective country’s top player, and Henman was effectively appointed by the Scot. It will be intriguing to see how much he can get from Britain’s highest-ranked player, Dan Evans. Their playing methods, relying more on skill and touch than sheer power, have been compared, so they should speak a very similar tennis lingo. Evans was last year’s redemption story, coming back from a cocaine ban to enter the world’s top 40. He confounded those who feared he may have wasted his considerable natural talent, Henman among them. ‘I thought he had thrown it all away. The decision he made was appalling but he served his time,’ said Henman. ‘What is brilliant is how well he responded. I spent three or four days with him at Delray Beach, where he qualified and made the final. To come back from a very difficult time to then be top 50 at the end of the year is a great achievement. ‘He is a good person. He has made one or two bad decisions and hopefully with maturity he can build on that next year.’ Henman hopes to steer GB through their four-team group into the quarter-finals of an event set up by the ATP Tour and Tennis Australia as a rival to the Davis Cup. There appears little logic to the new event, however. There has been no fan demand for it and tennis already has a blockbuster start to its season with the Australian Open in the second half of the month. Other existing ATP events will be overshadowed, while the mixed team event, the Hopman Cup in Perth, has been ditched despite its popularity. The women are upset they have not been included in this season opener, while some of the men from stronger nations competing are not happy, either, as they have been overlooked. The captains do not pick the squad because they are based purely on rankings from two months ago. That means, for instance, Kyle Edmund could not be considered, despite being GB’s top performer six weeks ago at the Davis Cup. Ranking points are up for grabs in Sydney — unlike in the Davis Cup — and the selection criteria has undermined the event’s credibility.