Three-hour thrillers and late-night finishes have been a huge part of Andy Murray’s career.
And while the Dunblane ace’s many fans have been fortunate enough – when they’ve managed to stay awake – to see him victorious in many of these matches, Wednesday’s Davis Cup decider against USA in Glasgow wasn’t one of them.
He and Joe Salisbury went into the match tied at 1-1 after Dan Evans had lost to Tommy Paul and Cameron Norrie fought back to beat Taylor Fritz – both long three-set affairs.
The doubles against Rajeev Ram and Jack Sock began at 10pm and it was approaching 1am in Glasgow when the Americans came through 5-7 6-4 7-5.
Team GB play the Netherlands today (Friday) and Kazakhstan on Sunday as they seek one of the two qualifying spots in the group.
Each nation plays two singles matches and one doubles against their group opponents in a best-of-three sets format.
There are three other cities hosting groups this week as 16 nations chase places in November’s finals in Malaga.
Murray admitted that the late start and subsequent 12:58am finish was “not ideal”. He added: “There’s probably half of the people in there at the end of the match that were there at the beginning.
“It’s a bit of a shame because, well, they missed a great match. It’s not probably because they didn’t want to stay.
“If you got children here, you can’t stay with them. (If) you’ve got to get a bus or train home, (you) can’t do it.”
The Brits took the first set after both shared breaks then Sock netted off Murray in the 12th game which went to six deuces. In the second set, it looked like Murray and Salisbury were on their way to victory when they led 3-1.
But Sock and Ram only let the Brits take seven more points in the set as they forced a decider, which they won
with a Ram smash at the net after they had broken to lead 6-5.
