Davis Cup: GB v Ukraine

Sheddie · administrator

RE: Davis Cup: GB v Ukraine

RJA · Hall of fame

My guess is that this means Greg will play singles on Day 1 (as I have been saying for some time) and that Jamie has been brought in to play in the doubles with Andy.

Sheddie · administrator

All the newspapers keep saying that Rusedski's hip injury will probably limit him to just playing the doubles, although the Scotsman newspaper has suggested that Lloyd would probably play Greg in the final rubber on Sunday if it was decisive.

Jamie Baker will almost certainly not play the doubles, he's not a doubles player. He's played doubles just twice in 2006, winning two matches with Jonny Marray in Greece. He didn't play doubles at all on the tour in 2005.

If Greg's injury isn't as bad as the press make out and he does play Stakhovsky on Friday, then Lloyd will surely pick Jamie Delgado to partner Andy in Saturday's doubles given that Delgado's the highest ranked doubles player in the squad [at a career high doubles ranking of 139] and he's just reached two challenger doubles final on clay !!!

I really, really want to see Jamie Baker get given an opportunity in Friday's singles though, [and as you know, I'm completely unbiased

]. It's a great opportunity to give him his debut in a live rubber as clay is his best surface along with outdoor hard. If GB win the tie, next year we'll be up against harder opposition and not on clay. Perhaps crucially, Andy Murray thinks it's a good time to give Jamie a chance "It's a really good chance for Jamie," Murray said. "It's great experience to play in the Davis Cup and maybe win a match because the Ukraine players are not the same sort of standard as the other teams that we've played against. So it will be a great experience playing in Davis Cup."

aria81 · Club Coach

The Mackin situation is looking pretty ugly.

ALAN MACKIN called John Lloyd, the new Great Britain Davis Cup captain, last week to say that he had reached the quarter-finals of a third ATP Challenger event in succession and was “pumped” about playing in Ukraine this weekend. The response was not exactly what he had expected.

Lloyd told Mackin it was not worth his while travelling as he had slipped to the bottom of the selection pecking order and would not be considered for the most important tie in a decade. Thus, Britain enters a Euro- African zone group one relegation play-off in Odessa with four players, one of whom played his lone 2006 singles match on clay last week and another whose feet have not touched the stuff competitively this year. Aching bones and bare bones are the squad’s prominent features.

Mackin, from Paisley, has long been regarded as an international misfit, thrust into matches against Mark Philippoussis, in Australia in 2003, and Roger Federer, the world No 1, in Switzerland a year ago in which he was little more than cannon fodder. When Lloyd named him to play in Ukraine — Mackin says he found out about his selection from close friends and not the captain — the Scot believed that this was a real chance to break his “live” singles duck.

Lloyd wanted his five-man squad to practise and bond in Austria last week — he excused Andy Murray and Greg Rusedski, which appeared to undermine the bonding — but, according to Mackin, he had not made it clear that if he did not attend, he risked forfeiting his selection. Against the captain’s express wishes, Mackin chose to enter a challenger in Orleans, France, where, having reached the last eight of similar tournaments on Dutch red clay in the preceding two weeks, repeated the performance on an indoor hard court.

Mackin’s belief was that winning matches, playing well and boosting his ranking was perfect preparation. Lloyd’s view was that once a player was selected for Davis Cup, he did whatever it took to make himself available and he could not accept Mackin’s decision.

What has most hurt the 25-year-old — who lost in five sets in the first round at Wimbledon to Marcos Baghdatis, the top-ten player from Cyprus — was the inference that by playing in France, he demonstrated a lack of commitment to the Davis Cup.

“I have always given my best wherever I’ve been,” he said. “If the last match against Israel in July had been a ‘live’ match, I was ready to play that and believe I’d have won.”

Lloyd said: “I have ultimate responsibility for the team. It seems Alan took advice to play in a tournament in France instead of travelling to Vienna. By not being here, I can’t tell if he is fit enough to play in a five-set Davis Cup match.”

One has to wonder, if the fact that Mackin has teamed up with Mike Raphael, a controversial coach, may have been crucial to the decision. Raphael is responsible for Alex Bogdanovic, the British No 4, who was dropped by Lloyd after an indistinguished performance against Israel — and Raphael was upset by comments made by the new captain about Bogdanovic during his BBC commentary in Eastbourne.

Jamie Delgado, who lost the reverse singles against Noam Okun that confirmed Britain’s defeat by Israel and the need to travel to the Black Sea coast this weekend, has been promoted from hitting partner. Jamie Baker, occasional Times columnist and the world No 302, who has not played a tour clay-court event this year, is the junior partner. Lloyd’s choice will revolve around the fitness of Rusedski, the 33-year-old who is struggling with a hip cartilage injury and is debating retirement after the tie.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5205-2362902,00.html

It'll be interesting to see the ramifications this has. Lloyd has got off to a really great start - so far, in his short stint as DC coach he's managed to alienate our number 4 player, the number 7 and the number 10.

-- Edited by aria81 at 03:14, 2006-09-18

andyjmr · Intermediate Club Player

A shame the LTA can't just throw a few more £££'s Brad Gilbert's way and get him to be our DC captain - no offence to John Lloyd - he thinks he's doing the right thing - but he's just letting his ego get in the way.. it's an obstacle we don't need.

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

No offence to John Lloyd? I would throw plenty of offence his way. He is surely making an absolute

of this job.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

this guy is a total loser, most of us heard his coments about alex during the dc match (i have it on dvd if anyone wants a copy) and some of them went too far, yes it was a bad match but ales was hurting, but surely no need to go on about it for the whole weekend, and i'm not suprised that mike was seriously pissed off with him.

its an abosolute joke, how can you drop mackin after he has just played 6 matches in a week winnign 5 of them, and then say he might not be able to play a 5 setter. HELLO Mr Lloyd, Greg cant probably play a 3 setter!! i think we will still win this tie, andy and jamie should have the class to do it on their own, but this is all

lets look at the dc team this time next year - the 5 most likely candidates would be andy, alex, josh, jamie b, james A.

so we have james A out of favour for getting married, josh pissed off for not getting selected after qualifying for back to back slams, name another brit thats done that recently. i think jamie b is happy, but as long as he is actaully selected to play not to becnh warm and alex on whom enough has been said before.

looks like we've got a great team spirit building.

-- Edited by Count Zero at 09:25, 2006-09-18

-- Edited by Count Zero at 09:27, 2006-09-18

Count Zero · Tennis legend

my mistake, alan only won 4 matchs, he had a 1st roudn byw in the q's. still impressive tho.

lucky for us jonny wasnt in the team or we'd be really short on players.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

in the latest bbc artcile JL says he has a 2 & 1/2 year contract

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

Can he still be sacked after this tie if things go disastrously wrong?

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

Sally wrote:

Can he still be sacked after this tie if things go disastrously wrong?

If he can then I'm not entirely sure I want us to win!

I didn't watch the Boggo match during the last tie, but did watch the matches on the Sunday and Lloyd still hadn't let it go at that point, insulting Alex whenever the opportunity arose.

When he was selected as captain I was prepared to give him a chance to change my opinion, and to be fair he has...it's now even lower than it was before. I just don't understand him, he's left out our top doubles player; completely alienated our number 4 (and soon to be number 2) player; declared he would not take Goodall when he'd just finished playing in the second grand slam he qualified for this year; and now punished someone for doing really well a full week and a half before the tie is due to be played. He has double standards if he expects Mackin to be there a full 5 day before Greg and Andy, who weren't even playing a tournament.

aria81 · Club Coach

Count Zero wrote:

this guy is a total loser, most of us heard his coments about alex during the dc match (i have it on dvd if anyone wants a copy) and some of them went too far, yes it was a bad match but ales was hurting, but surely no need to go on about it for the whole weekend, and i'm not suprised that mike was seriously pissed off with him.

its an abosolute joke, how can you drop mackin after he has just played 6 matches in a week winnign 5 of them, and then say he might not be able to play a 5 setter. HELLO Mr Lloyd, Greg cant probably play a 3 setter!! i think we will still win this tie, andy and jamie should have the class to do it on their own, but this is all

lets look at the dc team this time next year - the 5 most likely candidates would be andy, alex, josh, jamie b, james A.

so we have james A out of favour for getting married, josh pissed off for not getting selected after qualifying for back to back slams, name another brit thats done that recently. i think jamie b is happy, but as long as he is actaully selected to play not to becnh warm and alex on whom enough has been said before.

looks like we've got a great team spirit building.

-- Edited by Count Zero at 09:25, 2006-09-18

-- Edited by Count Zero at 09:27, 2006-09-18

The galling thing is that Lloyd has basically gave himself a ready made excuse if we lose this.

I just think it's a joke. Auckland should have been there, and as much as I like Jamie Baker, Josh had earned his place there as well. The Mackin thing is the final straw though. His comments about Boggo were totally unacceptable but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt about them purely because I can appreciate how frustrating Alex can be at times but I think this latest problem is an indicator about a greater man-management issue.

I mean lets be honest - if you were a British player, would you make yourself available to play DC for us at the moment?

Akhenaten · Pro player

It's pretty much acceptable for a commentator to criticise players. They are paid for their comments.
But, Lloyd said he wanted the Davis Cup captaincy before Bates resigned, and therefore it was incredibly foolish of him to slag off the second best player he could pick, and to completely alienate him. And it's even more stupid of the LTA to hire someone who could be that stupid.

Boggo should be in the Ukraine now, with the 100% back of his Davis Cup captain, then it's obvious to Josh, Mackin or anyone else that the GB Davis Cup singles players are Andy and either a fit Greg or Boggo, and they wouldn't feel so agrieved if they weren't picked.

And picking Mackin and then telling him he's not wanted because he's done too well in a tournament, just tops all stupidity.

-- Edited by Akhenaten at 16:01, 2006-09-18

Eddster · Junior player

Hi all just thought I would throw my two cents in as well.

Regarding Boggo, it seems the guy doesnt have it mentally atm to play in davis cup, I only saw the Israel match but it did just seem he let it go in the third. Before anyone asks I do know he did well against Nadal at Wimbledon but I think he either can't cope with the pressure that playing for your country brings or just the pressure of the team competition.

Mackin is a difficult one, yes he has had some very good results last week, but people do say that transitioning from court sufaces is very difficult, and the fact that it will probably be Murray and Rusedski on first day and then Murray - Delgado in the doubles the tie might be over anyway.

Auckland I am not sure why he wasnt selected unless Lloyd feels that Delgado's results have been better in the short term and perhaps better on clay than auckland.

Overall I think Lloyd has done ok so far, I know people are not happy about crticising Boggo but it does seem justified and for the fact of shouldn't have said those things if he thought he could be captain at a latter date, he probably thought we would win the tie anyway.

He has also said he would never have wanted to be Captain if the old LTA guy was there (I forget his name) for how he treated his brother when he was Captain.

Hope this makes some sense

Eddie

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Interview with Lloyd on lta.org.uk

http://www.lta.org.uk/Newsroom/Interviews/060919Lloyd.htm?BSMGuid=f3c23752-24bb-42b6-8454-07b73c66254b