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Britain face tough Davis Cup task

29/09/2005

Great Britain have been handed a tough task to return to the tennis elite after being drawn against Serbia-Montenegro or Israel in the second round of the Davis Cup Euro-Africa zone one.

Jeremy Bates' team were seeded fourth among the group of lesser tennis-playing nations and have been given a bye in the first round.

But they will then face the prospect of a difficult home tie in April, when they could face a rematch against the Israeli team they stuttered to a 3-2 victory against in Tel Aviv in March.

On that occasion an unknown Andy Murray made his debut in the doubles while ranked out of the world's top 400, but he has now rocketed into the top 100 and is a key member of the British team.

Having lost his singles rubber in the 5-0 World Group playoff whitewash against Switzerland last weekend, however, the Scot will be hopeful of putting in a somewhat better display next year.

He is likely to be joined by Greg Rusedski in the singles clashes, while David Sherwood, Alan Mackin and Alex Bogdanovic are set to compete for the squad places following British number one Tim Henman's retirement from Davis Cup tennis.

Although Britain could have easier tasks in front of them – Portugal and Luxembourg were both avoided – most observers would expect home advantage and two top-100 players to be enough to see them earn another playoff chance with victory.

Serbia's top player is 18-year-old Novak Djokovic, who is ranked 81st in the world after an impressive season, while world number 126 Janko Tipsarevic has an impressive Davis Cup pedigree, having won 21 out of 25 games in the competition.

Luxembourg would arguably offer the weakest challenge to Britain as, apart from world number 66 Gilles Muller who knocked out Andy Roddick at this year's US Open, they have no players in the top 1000 of the ATP rankings.

Bates' team beat Luxembourg 4-1 away in April last year, while Britain have not faced Serbia before, although they lost to Yugoslavia 3-0 in 1987.

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