The British Davis Cup Squad

Update 12/09/09: John Lloyd must have read my blog as he called up Colin Fleming to replace the injured Josh Goodall in the squad although i doubt he will have the guts to play Flemski in the doubles

The British Davis Cup Squad for its play-off tie against Poland has been announced.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/8234952.stm

Now the squad is: Andy Murray, Ross Hutchins, Ken Skupski, James Ward, Josh Goodall and Dan Evans.

I have some issues with this squad. Firstly, if fit, Andy will play singles and by the look of the squad he will not be playing doubles. This would be a good decision as he will probably be playing after a successful and tiring US open campaign so we should save for the two singles games only. Now the other singles place is very much up for grabs between Evans, Goodall and Ward. I would like to see Goodall be given another go. Poland two top singles players are Kubot and Janowicz ranked 124 and 230 respectively. Goodall should be able to win one of theses and challenge the other. The reason for not picking Evans are that I think it is a bit too soon for him. He has had a great season and gone up about 150 places in the rankings but he needs to keep improving again next year and start pushing the top 100 because he is the most able of the rest of the players. James Ward is an enigma to me I saw him play at Queens and Wimbledon and he played rubbish. Yes he was up against good players but I was not impressed. He deserves to be in the squad as he is currently the 2nd best British ranked singles players but I don’t think he will ever be a top 100 player although I would love him to prove me wrong.

So with those two singles chosen on to the doubles. Looking at the squad it looks like Hutchins and Skupski will be playing together. This to me is a mistake. I like Ross Hutchins a lot and he is a very able doubles player but why was Colin Fleming not picked as he is Skupski regular playing partner. They play very well together and have one numerous tournaments a challenger and future level. Furthermore when they stepped up to ATP level this year they beat the BRYAN BROTHERS. Surely they should be given a chance after an achievement like that. I know it would have been a big statement leaving out Ross Hutchins but seeing as his and Andy’s few performances this year have not great I see no reason to pick him. I would like to see a policy were we pick are best performing all British pair excluding Andy Murray so he can rest and not play 3 matches in 3 days. So my team would be:

Singles: Murray and Goodall

Doubles: Skupski and Fleming

To finish a quick mention of the demise of Jaime Murray. I love him as a player. He is fun to watch and can volley very well. Since his mixed doubles win with Jankovic at Wimbledon a couple of years ago it has all gone downhill. He has had numerous partners and none have worked. He is currently plying his trade at Challenger level with Jaime Delgado. No disrespect to Delgado but Jaime should be playing at ATP level. My solution to this would be to pair Jaime with Ross Hutchins next season. I do not know why this has never happened before. They seem like they could be a good match. It maybe because Ross is such good friends with Andy but I feel it would help Jaime to be around Andy and his camp at this moment in his career. He could learn a thing from Andy and maybe start playing with a smile on his face and surely good results would follow.

UPDATE:

So Ken is only in the squad as a reserve to gain experience and offer the offer guys practice against a lefty as one of the polish guys is a lefty. John Lloyd also seemed to imply in his interview on BBC Radio Five Live tonight that Dan Evans will get the other singles place. On the Hutchins/Jaime partnership i found this on Ross’s website:

WHY DON’T YOU TEAM UP WITH JAMIE MURRAY IN THE GRAND SLAMS?

“To be honest it has just been a matter of a couple or things – often we already have set partners so its tough to split just for the slams. Also we have not both been high on the rankings at the same time. I think Jamie is a very strong doubles player and I hope we will play a lot together in the future.”

So there is hope in the future. If you missed the hour long Tennis show on Five Live then I recomend it as it was quite good fun with Ann Keothavong and Andy murray on as well as Ross and John Lloyd. Catch it on iplayer.