We are reliant on Murray, admits Lloyd
John Lloyd reliant on Andy Murray
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Great Britain trail Ukraine 2-0 in their Davis Cup tie after Chris Eaton lost 3-6 6-3 3-6 4-6 to Sergiy Stakhovsky in the second singles tie. |  |
Saturday, 07, Mar 2009 06:07
Great Britain coach John Lloyd admitted his team had little hope of Davis Cup success without their number one player Andy Murray.
Without Murray, Lloyd's men were comprehensively beaten 3-0 by the Ukraine, with two matches still to go, in the Euro/Africa Zone Group One tie. Great Britain are now a demoralising three levels away from getting back into the World Group.
Murray missed the tie due to a fever, but the Davis Cup doesn't seem to be a major attraction for the world number four as he refused to travel to Argentina last year for a tie. Lloyd has warned that unless Great Britain can find another world class player to help Murray, then the Scot could continue to give little attention to the competition.
"We when we have our number one player (Murray) we are a solid Group One team with an outside chance of making it into the World Group. But without him it's going to be tough going," said Lloyd.
"We can produce some players but we don't have the depth. We don't have enough players to compliment Andy Murray. We need more players in the top 100, that's our goal.
"Players have got to be hungrier, in the past it's been a bit too easy. It's a much tougher regime now and hopefully we will see some results. We have to keep working at it, there is no easy way."
Despite an encouraging effort from doubles players Ross Hutchins and Colin Fleming in their five-set defeat, there were few plus points to come out of the tie.
Both singles players Jason Goodall and Chris Eaton were outplayed and there doesn't seem to be another player coming through who could partner Murray.