At the end of a bruising, difficult week that did not play out as they had hoped, Great Britain emerged for the final day of Davis Cup competition in Manchester with just one possible path remaining for them to reach the next stage of the event: they needed to win all three matches against Canada, the strongest team in the group.
While this may have been a realistic possibility on paper, the reality played out as a painful anticlimax. Great Britain was knocked out of contention at the very first hurdle following an excellent performance from Denis Shapovalov, who dismantled Dan Evans 6-0, 7-5 in the opening encounter.
Canada finished a successful week with a 2-1 win against Great Britain as a frustrated Jack Draper fell 7-6 (8), 7-5 against Félix Auger-Aliassime in the second rubber before Neal Skupski and Henry Patten, on Patten’s debut, defeated Gabriel Diallo and Alexis Galarneau 7-6 (4), 6-4.
While Canada advanced to the “Final Eight” knockout stage of the Davis Cup finals in Málaga top of Group D, Argentina qualified in second place. Great Britain finished in third place with a 1-2 record after defeats against both Argentina and Canada.
“It’s just disappointing,” Evans said afterwards. “Watching Jack walk out there with no chance of qualifying, it’s difficult and I have to – not live with it, it’s not that important – but I have to deal with that. It was frustrating to not give him a shot, I really thought I could have.”
A crushing 2-1 defeat against Argentina on Friday left Great Britain in an uncomfortable position on Sunday as 15,700 fans, the largest Davis Cup crowd in Britain, convened at the AO Arena. Canada’s Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime have been in excellent form this week and Shapovalov maintained his level in a supreme exhibition of attacking tennis against Evans.
While the match was meaningless to the competition, Draper against Auger-Aliassime was imbued with more significance by their controversial last meeting when Draper inadvertently struck the ball into the ground while leading match point. The umpire did not realise the ball had bounced twice and awarded Draper the match.
“It’s Davis Cup, a lot of tension and obviously with what happened last time, I was just trying to get redemption,” Auger-Aliassime said.
“I didn’t even get to really, in my eyes, finish the match. In my eyes, it was deuce. Not to go into if it was his fault or the referee’s fault, that’s the reality. I know it was maybe a tough time for him as well, the criticism he got after, but I had to go to bed knowing that the match wasn’t finished. That’s tough as well. Today was an opportunity to redeem myself.”
Draper saved five set points before destroying his racket as Auger-Aliassime took the set. Although he fought until the end, Draper was outplayed by a strong Auger-Aliassime, who has bounced back well from a poor first-round defeat at the US Open. Such is the calendar, Draper will have just one day to rest before leaving for Tokyo on Tuesday.
“It was a choice not to be here,” Draper said. “But I put myself out there, put myself in a position to fight for the team, and it wasn’t meant to be the last couple of days but I’m proud of myself and give myself a lot of credit for putting myself on the line, for coming up here to try my best for the country, for the team. It’s a shame that it didn’t work out, but that’s sport.”
The British No 4, Sonay Kartal, clinched her maiden WTA Tour title at the Jasmin Open in Tunisia on Sunday. The 22-year-old from Brighton held her nerve to beat Slovakia’s Rebecca Sramkova 6-3, 7-5 for a win that will catapult her into the top 100 in the world rankings.
Kartal had come through qualifying but lost only one set throughout the tournament, and took her second opportunity to serve out for the title when her opponent splayed a forehand wide. She had already been enjoying the best season of her young career having reached the third round of Wimbledon as a qualifier.
Kartal took the first set with the minimum of fuss and looked set to race away for the title after establishing a 4-1 lead in the second. But Sramkova surged back to 4-4 before a series of service breaks ended with Kartal nudging into a 6-5 lead from which went on to complete her win. “It’s unbelievable,” said Kartal. “I tried so much to put the occasion and the score behind me and try to treat it just like any other match. It’s been such a good week, I’ve played some of my best tennis.”
The British team has now advanced from the Davis Cup group stages only once in its last three years despite being the host nation during this period. This edition was played under particularly challenging circumstances, with Draper facing a difficult turnaround and the absence of British No 2 Cameron Norrie because of injury.
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After two difficult defeats, Evans revealed he is pondering his retirement from Davis Cup. During the week, the 34-year-old became Great Britain’s second most prolific Davis Cup player having now competed in 28 ties.
“There’s a good saying, which I wasn’t very good at when I was younger: ‘You’ve got to learn when to leave the party,’” he said. “I need to have a think. I’ve obviously thought about it before. I came here being a bit hurt before. If I want to, this could quite really be a week off for me if I wanted it to be. And it would be nice, obviously. But I love representing my country.”
