Bob in Spain wrote:

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Road trip over. Finally made it back home. Despite the result, it was well worth the trip. I know the LTA gets a lot of stick at times, and often rightly so, but I am very grateful to them for their gesture yesterday. I will put my thoughts on the matches and tournament up later, but for now, food is calling.

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 Glad it was worth it and look forward to hearing your report !

OK. Firstly the matches.

Kyle - What a magnificent performance to follow up his two wins on previous days. As I tweeted last night, one of the most impressive factors was that he had spent the day preparing to face a righty baseliner, and ended up playing a lefty mixer upper. He took all that in his stride (and I agree with others here that there was some "sharp practice" from the Spanish over the late change) and came out with all guns blazing. Opened with three aces and an easy hold. Caught Lopez cold when breaking for 2-0 and never looked back. He looked sharp, fit and full of confidence which shone through at *4-5 15-40 in the 2nd set. Ace - service winner and went on to hold.

I spoke to Mike Dickson before the match and he told me that in his opinion, Kyle had played better this week than at any time since his run in the AO in 2018. Nothing I saw would dissuade me from that judgement.

So why the upturn in fortunes ? Spoke to some fans last night who seemed to think the knee injury had been more serious and longer lasting than anyone was letting on, although that was speculation. Perhaps, as some of us here have suggested, the team environment has helped to bring back the confidence. But I want to throw a third theory into the hat. Kyle has recently swapped back to using Beechy as his coach. Many will remember their partnership from some of my match reports in Kyle's time on the futures circuit. There is no doubt that the two of them get on superbly well, so I ask the question - is the upturn in form and Beechy being reinstated just a coincidence ?

Whatever the reason, it was fantastic to see Kyle back to his best and if Sim is kind enough to do a Ranking Predictions for 2020, I will have Kyle back in the Top 20 on what I saw.

Evo - So tough on Dan last night.  He fought so hard for the 1st set and played some terrific tennis, but once the set had gone, the tank simply ran dry. Having played 3 long and emotionally draining 3 setters over the previous 3 days, that was hardly surprising and to come up against a crowd inspired Rafa on the back of that was a bridge too far. So I will prefer to remember Evo for his amazing win over Struff.  He left it all out on the court in that match and the result was truly memorable - almost as memorable as the celebration. Evo has earned the rest that hopefully he will now get before the pre-season starts up in earnest.

Jamie/Neal - What a match !!!  I just sat there in awe as three world class doubles players and one semi human extra terrestrial battled it out for the win.  The match could have gone either way, but I agree with the conclusions drawn by others on here, that the match turned on a couple of moments of Rafa heroism in the 2 TBs.  Early in the first TB there was the half volley, off balance, forehand passing shot DTL that even as a Brit, I had to just stand up and applaud. Then in the 2nd TB, Jamie hit what I thought was a winning stop volley, only for Rafa to somehow get there and then turn it into an incredible lob.  So sometimes, we just have to stop analyzing how we played and just recognise genius when we see it.

Overall, I thought Neal started nervously and Jamie carried him a bit in the early stages. But by the 2nd set, Neal had relaxed and played superbly.  The Spanish were the ones hanging on in the 2nd set, but nobody managed to get a breakthrough.  I put that down to the most amazing stat of the night, which was that both pairs recorded 80%+ on their 1st serve percentages. It was truly an incredible match.

Leon - Just wanted to finally tip my hat Leon once again.  He has some very difficult decisions to make - even more so than when Andy basically carried the team, at least from a singles perspective.  There was a lot of pre-tournament discussion over Cam vs Kyle.  With no disrespect to Cam whatsoever, Leon clearly got that one right.  He continues to build an atmosphere that makes all the players want to play for him and for their country.  As mentioned above, the reaction of Evo after his win over Struff speaks volumes for the togetherness of the squad that Leon has built.  We are lucky to have him in charge.

JonH comes home wrote:

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Excellent report Bob, really insightful and great to read. Really glad you enjoyed it as well and the trip was worthwhile.

Out of interest, did you get any insights into Andy at all from talking to folks like Mike Dickson etc?

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Saw your comments earlier on Andy.  The suggestion was that he wasn't quite match fit.  Also that if his match fitness isn't quite there, it affects him mentally as well as the body can't do what the mind is telling it to do.  I do find it a difficult one to judge and understand your feelings. It may just be that Andy thought he was ready when the team was announced, only to find that in the end, he wasn't quite there.  He was clearly close to being fit and as Indi mentioned, he did win the one match he played.  But it may have been a misjudgement on his part.  Having said that, I think we can all agree that Andy has enough "credit in the bank" for us to forgive him such a misjudgement, if indeed that was the case.