A round up from the Davis Cup

Judy Murray attended the Davis Cup against Poland in Liverpool. Read her thoughts on the tournament here.

After an early start on Friday I had a date with the Highland Spring Kids Zone at 10:45 so I wandered over to the Echo Arena to find a kind of blow-up mini court set up outside the box office.

There was the usual noisy, fun banter from the wonderful Phil Leighton who really should have been a children’s TV presenter. I’ve known Phil for about 14 years from when he was coaching Matt Smith in the juniors (he now runs his own company delivering fun tennis activity at events) so I had offered to stop by.

Needless to say I got roped into playing mini tennis doubles with passers by. It was actually quite challenging as the court was on a slope and the surface was quite bumpy. But when you are partnering Phil, you never lose. He has a great way of creating rules to be sure that he always wins. Fine by me!

I headed into the arena in good time as I’d heard the entertainment began at 11:30. I remember really enjoying the Racketeers at a couple of the Davis Cups - a group of jugglers/dancers who threw rackets, balls, hoops etc around the court displaying  incredible coordination and choreography.

At the last tie in Glasgow we had the Proclaimors (a kiddy-on Proclaimers duo) and before that at Wimbledon there were 3 opera singers. After such fantastic previous experiences I had no idea what Liverpool was going to throw up but I didn’t expect the violinists on display. They were very good but as loud as they were, I wasn’t convinced that violins were going to get the crowd fired up.

Talking of getting the crowd fired up, the students from Stirling Uni certainly did that. There were probably about 40 of them all in matching shirts (and a lot of kilts). They had clearly spent a lot of time rehearsing various chants and improvising bits of songs to incorporate the GB team members and they made a huge impact on the atmosphere. My favourite was "who let the Hutch out?"

 
You will have read about the tennis elsewhere so I wont go on about that but I was starving after Andy’s match and headed out to Pizza Express (a short lob from Echo's door) with my friends and settled my stomach before going in to watch Dan Evans. Andy won. Dan didn’t. And the highlight for sure was doing a wee interview with Andrew Castle. Can’t tell you how jealous my mates are that I can get that close to him. Sad really!
 
Bumped into a number of Andy’s website forum members who were out in force and positioned in a section of the arena behind Sue Barker and the BBC team. They had their Team Murray t-shirts on and the usual selection of fun banners – the best is probably "Sue Barker for Queen". They had bought me a birthday present which was very thoughtful of them as always even though I have now officially stopped having birthdays and will continue to be 40-something forevermore!
 
Dinner at Albert Dock in a restaurant called Blue.
 
On Saturday I had a morning of shopping planned but it didn’t work out at all as Kim got ill on the way to Liverpool shopping centre and we ended up getting a taxi back. Bumped into Greg Rusedski there though, who I thought was looking extremely trendy. I asked him if he had been baby shopping (his 2nd is due in 2 weeks) but he had only been to Staples.
 
We tried to time our arrival at Echo to avoid the violins but no such luck. The doubles was always going to be tough as the Poles have a strong established pair in Frystenburg and Matkowski, as do most successful Davis Cup teams. So 2-1 down and needing to win both matches on the Sunday.

I wondered who John Lloyd was going to pick for the deciding rubber as Andy was first up against the promising Janowicz. A tough one to put Dan Evans in as he is only 19 and making his debut. May have been better to put Colin Fleming in. He is 25 and more mentally mature but it would have been a debut for him so tough call. Glad I’m not the captain.
 
I stopped in at Pizza Express on way back with my friend Laura, Kim and Ross Hutchins girlfriend Linzi. A huge table of about 30 of Andy’s internet following came in as we were finishing and it was good to see them all having a good time despite the result!
 
I drove home late Saturday night - left at 23.45 and arrived at 05:00 having stopped for a snooze in a service station at 03.30 I hadn’t been feeling well all week and decided a day in the house was better than coughing and spluttering in Liverpool.
 
On Sunday I watched the match on TV from the sofa. It was interesting listening to the BBC commentary because there seemed to be an opinion that Fleming might still be drafted in for the 5th rubber.

Andy was inspired and leveled the tie and it was Evans who came out to play the decider which was a tough ask for anyone, especially for a young player. The Pole looked calm and focused and took the first two sets pretty quickly. When he broke for 2-0 in the third it seemed all over. Dan then won four games in a row thanks to pressurising his opponent with some good net play but dropped serve at 4-2 and again at 5-5 and GB is relegated to Group 2. The Poles were clearly delighted of course.
 
The draw for the next round sees us up against Lithuania in March. Hopefully this will give our players a chance to compete and win matches on the Davis Cup stage and to prepare a team that can hold its own in Group 1 in future.
 
Over and out...