Britain in strong position in Davis Cup tie
For a country that has won the main event nine times, it is hardly something to be shouting about.
But then Great Britain has not had much to shout about in the Davis Cup for quite a while now.
The last of those nine victories came in 1936 and even an appearance in the final dates, 1978, back to before any of the players in the current tie against Turkey were born.
After an undignified plummet to the basement regions of the competition Great Britain are closing in on a first Davis Cup victory in nearly three years at Eastbourne's Devonshire Park after James Ward (pictured) delivered an impressive 6-2, 7-5, 6-7 (0/7), 6-1 victory over Marsel Ilhan to complete a 2-0 lead.
Leon Smith, the new Davis Cup captain, ended the first day of play contemplating the arrest of a five-match losing run, and avoiding yet another humiliation – that would have been heaped on the all others that had gone before – of finally hitting the rock bottom of the Europe/Africa Zone Group III; the lowest tier of the competition.
Jamie Baker set the right tone for the tie got the team off to the perfect start with a 6-1, 6-4, 6-1 victory over Ergun Zorlu but Ward was expected to have more problems when he faced Ilhan.
The 23-year-old Turk, ranked just three places outside the top 100, had grass-court experience having reached the second round at Wimbledon while Ward’s ranking is nearly 200 places lower.
But Ward had got as far as the quarter-finals of the AEGON International at Devonshire Park last month and had two previous wins over Ilhan this year.
Neither had been easy wins but Ward got off to a flying start, break Ilhan three times to win the first set. His opponent fought back to take the advantage at the start of the second set but Ward levelled at 3-3 and, serving at 5-6, Ilhan wavered, gifting Ward three set points. He saved one, with an ace, but netted a forehand on the second.
Ward seemed in control, when he broke for 4-2, but then he faltered and he was broken for only the second time in the rubber but then Ilhan double-faulted to give Ward a first match point. He could not take it and a second one was snuffed out with an ace.
When the set reached a tie-break Ilhan rifled off seven successive points and Smith might have begun to have uneasy thoughts. But Ward gathered his own, breaking Ilhan in all three of his service games at the start of the fourth set for 4-1 lead and when Ward reached a third match point he made no mistake.
“It was a sticky moment at the end of the third but I came back strongly at the beginning of the fourth and knew what I had to do” Ward said. “As I’d played him twice already this year and beaten him both times I was confident but as you’ve seen he still plays well and fought back well in the third set so I’m pleased to have won.
“As the fourth set began I knew I needed to get back to what I was doing well in the first two sets. I lost it a little bit towards the end of the third, wasn’t mixing up my serves as well as I was previously and in the fourth I concentrated on hitting the spots as well as coming to the net more which worked well.”
A win for or Colin Fleming and Ken Skupski in the doubles will secure Britain's place in Group II for another year.
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