With the tie nicely poised at 1-1, after an enthralling day’s play at the Barclaycard Arena on Friday, Team GB will look to pull away from Japan in the doubles. Andy Murray and his brother Jamie Murray will form a very strong unit against an inexperienced Japanese duo of Yoshihito Nishioka and Yasutaka Uchiyama. Whilst the omission of Kei Nishikori, comfortably Japan’s best player is surprising, considering the importance of this match in the context of the tie.
There had been some doubt regarding who would play for Great Britain and whether Andy Murray could play three games in three days. Leon Smith commented in yesterday’s press conference, “It just depends how he feels. When we get back we’ll have a conversation about it and then, hopefully he feels good. But the good thing is, honestly, even if he doesn’t want to play we’ve got a very very good guy in Dom Inglot, so I’m quite relaxed about it. Andy and Jamie is our strongest team, so it’s great if they could play, so we’ll go back and have a chat about it, but if it’s not that combination, Dom and Jamie are very strong.”
Great Britain will go into this match as strong favourites, with both players ranked second in the world in their respective fields. And it will take a display that transcends their ranking for the Japanese players to come away with victory.
Caspar Goodwin
