Andy Murray faces old foe, Jurgen Melzer, in the fourth rubber of Great Britains Davis Cup by BNP Paribas tie on Sunday, the British team trailing the Austrians one rubber to two after Saturdays play.
The British No.1 will have to win his re-match against Melzer, the man who took him to five sets in the third round of the US Open, in order to force this weekends tie to a deciding fifth rubber on Sunday.
Saturdays pivotal doubles match saw Jamie Murray and Ross Hutchins fall to Austrian No.1 Jurgen Melzer and world No.15 doubles player, Julien Knowle, 4-6, 3-6, 1-6 in one hour and 41 minutes.
The Austrian pairing made a strong start to the match, breaking in the eighth game to take a 5-3 lead before serving out the first set 6-3. They raced to a 5-1 lead in the second set, the British pairing managing to claw back two games before the Austrians secured a two-sets-to-love lead. Melzer and Knowle were to drop just one more game in the match, running out comfortable winners.
British Captain, John Lloyd, said he was surprised at how strongly the Austrian pair had started. We knew that we werent necessarily favourites to win todays match but they came out much better than I expected, said Lloyd.
They combined very well together and our boys didnt play quite as well as wed hoped. But, all credit to them, Austria played an excellent match.
And Lloyd said that despite trailing 1-2 going into Sundays deciding singles rubbers, he was confident that the GB Highland Spring Davis Cup team could still clinch the tie and advance to the World Group in 2009.
Andy has a lot of confidence after beating Melzer in the third round of the US Open and reaching the final a fortnight ago, he said. And Alex played a good set and a half of tennis on Friday before Melzer imposed himself on their singles rubber. Sunday, against Peya, will be a very different proposition. Its an opportunity for Alex.
World No.4, Murray, has a 7-1 win-loss singles record in Davis Cup compared to Melzers 9-15 record. Murray has beaten world No. 41, Melzer, in both their meetings.
Should the tie go down to a fifth rubber Alexander Peya, the world No.164, has a 2-5 singles record in Davis Cup compared to world No. 162, Bogdanovic, who has won one of six Davis Cup singles matches. The pair has met twice with Peya the victor in both encounters.
The winning team this weekend will secure promotion to the elite 16-team Davis Cup by BNP Paribas World Group for 2009, while the losing team will be relegated to Euro/Africa Zone Group One.
