Murrays dedicated to helping Great Britain into Davis Cup final

Andy Murray lost the longest match of his career to Juan Martin del Potro to leave Great Britain up against it in their bid to reach a second consecutive Davis Cup final.

Britain play against Argentina a Davis Cup semifinal match starting Friday.

Murray, born just five miles from the arena on the other side of Glasgow 29 years ago, wanted a win over Del Potro as much as he did when he beat the Argentinian for the sixth time in eight contests to win his second Olympic gold medal in Rio only a month ago.

Two-time Olympic champion Andy will kick the tie off on Friday with a mouth-watering rubber against Juan Martin Del Potro, the man he beat in a four-set classic to win Rio gold.

Murray is expected to partner big brother Jamie, who clinched his second Grand Slam of the season with the men’s doubles title in NY, in the doubles as he looks set to play three times in three days against Argentina.

This opening rubber was, indeed, the blockbuster of the tie, putting Murray up against Juan Martin del Potro, a fellow US Open champion and the man who put up such a fight in the gold/silver match at this year’s Olympics.

Although Del Potro is Argentina’s best player, his ranking is still recovering from the two years he spent away from the game undergoing three wrist operations and both Federico Delbonis and Guido Pella are ranked above him.

The second semi-final between France and Croatia is evenly poised after the opening singles matches as Richard Gasquet and Marin Cilic started with wins.

“Don’t know, never played a match that long”.

Murray’s paternal grandfather, Gordon Murray, died last Friday.

The British team, captained by Smith, overcame Serbia in this year’s quarter-finals, while Daniel Orsanic’s Argentina defeated Italy.

GB captain Leon Smith left doubles specialist Dom Inglot out of his final four to give himself another singles option for Sunday’s final matches in Dan Evans. That happens in tennis and sport sometimes.

“Hopefully we can play good tennis and I will try to enjoy the whole atmosphere on court”. But the Scot, who looked increasingly tired as the exhausting encounter progressed, struggled to match Del Potro’s phenomenal ground strokes in the final two sets and finally succumbed after over five hours of nail-biting tennis.

But Murray is planning to be back at full throttle this weekend. The players kept going but the Argentine pulled wide to hand Murray the set, prompting him to demand to see the supervisor, with umpire Pascal Maria sternly reminding the crowd to have respect for both players and not call out. “This kind of moment was what I was missing”.

The clip shows Murray pick up the ball on the edge of his own area and look up, take a touch, then chip the ball up and over an opposition player – who is quickly trying to back track and defend his goal – before watching on as the ball loops over and into the back of the net.

Del Potro gained the crucial break in the fifth set at the third opportunity, reaching Murray’s angled volley with a forehand victor down the line to go 4-3 ahead, and he served out for the match, clinching victory with an ace and a big growl.