Murray a doubt for World Tour Finals

Great Britain captain Leon Smith hailed the commitment of Andy Murray as his top player considers missing the Barclays ATP Tour finals to help prepare for the Davis Cup final. The 28-year-old duly delivered his third point of the match, beating Tomic 7-5, 6-2, 6-2 in Glasgow.

Federer then eased himself back into match action five days later with a tentative performance in defeat to Gaël Monfils in the opening rubber of the Davis Cup final in France, before turning on the style over the next two days to carry Switzerland to their first victory in the competition.

“I think back to Ilie Nastase when he was having a great year in 1972/73 and he was behaving so badly that we all ostracised him in the dressing room for a year”, the Australian told Fairfax Media last week.

“(He’s had) a number of surgeries and various issues and still always given his best when he’s played the Davis Cup“, Murray continued.

A further wrinkle to throw into the mix is the ITF appeal, to be heard a fortnight before the final, at which the LTA hope to overturn the Davis Cup board decision to prevent Slovenian-born world No55 Aljaz Bedene from representing Great Britain.

However, if he simply chose not to play in the eight-man season finale on hard court, for which he has already qualified, he would be in breach of ATP Tour regulations.

That would mean him forfeiting his year-end payment from the tour bonus pool, distributed under a formula. “I’ve been struggling with my back, but I just tried to disguise it”, as BBC reports. “My back had been giving me a lot of trouble this week”, Murray said.

The final awaits for Britain who will now face Belgium.

“And obviously with Pat and Wally this year we’ve felt like I still had to play a very key role with the team dynamics and as a sub-in singles player and on the doubles court… just have a bit of added experience out there for the boys”.

This year, Murray and Co have beaten the United States, France and Australia in the first three rounds, and those three teams have won 69 Davis Cup titles between them.

By capturing seven titles, including three Grand Slam championships, Novak Djokovic has clinched the year-end number one ranking for a fourth time. Standard Life, one of Murray’s partners, the ATP World Tour and the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) have all announced they will match Murray’s donations, meaning every ace will result in a donation of £200 (USD $226) to children affected by conflict and disaster, such as those caught up in the current refugee and migrant crisis. On Tuesday night, once I had finished practising and had cooled down, my back was extremely sore and it got progressively worse over the next couple of days. “I would have been disappointed if we couldn’t have sold a lot of tickets based on how quickly these ones went [in Glasgow]”.