British number one smashes team-mates

Andy Murray is set to continue to play Davis Cup tennis for Great Britain despite their relegation to the Euro/Africa group after defeat against Austria at the weekend. The Scot is reportedly willing to continue to represent Britain, despite a damning appraisal of his team-mates and admissions from coach John Lloyd that he could lose his star player.

“If I make a sacrifice I think every single person in the team should be willing to make those sacrifices and say they will give it all they’ve got,” said Murray. “I want them to say they are physically able to play, even if they have to play three sets of five-day matches. Then I know everyone on the team wants to play as badly as I do.

“In both my matches I showed a lot of emotion and got the crowd involved. You have to do that in Davis Cup, especially when you have home ties, take advantage of the crowd. The guys in other matches didn’t get the crowd involved as much as I would have liked.”

Murray reserved personal criticism for Alex Bogdanovic, who lost the deciding rubber and has never won a Davis Cup singles rubber. “When Alex went behind we didn’t see any fist pumps,” Murray continued. “You don’t really hear any ‘C’mons’ or any emotion. Even if you are breaking rackets I don’t care. I want to see that you want to get the crowd involved and are desperate to win the match. It shows that you really care. The crowd in my match was very good. In Alex’s match it looked as if a lot of people left and the atmosphere was not very good.”

Lloyd had earlier admitted that he was fearful of losing Murray’s services. “We’ll see what happens with Murray,” he said. “I hope he plays next year now we’re down a division. If he doesn’t, we’ll go with some younger players and try to rebuild again. For someone like Andy Murray, he wants to be on the world stage and play on the big stage.”

The draw for Great Britain’s next Davis Cup match takes place in Madrid today.