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| Andy Murray pulls out of Britain Davis Cup match in Lithuania • World No4 will not play tie in March• Will open 2010 at Hopman Cup in Australia From the moment Britain were beaten by Poland in September, and thus fell into the third tier of the Davis Cup, Andy Murray's participation in the competition in 2010 looked doubtful at best. The confirmation that he will miss the next match has come as little surprise and so Britain will go into their Europe-Africa Zone 2 match in Lithuania in March without a singles player ranked in the world's top 250.Considering that Lithuania's highest-ranked player, Ricardas Berankis, is ranked outside the top 300, Britain ought to be capable of winning, even on clay. As he prepared for Britain's first match in the Hopman Cup here, alongside Laura Robson, Murray stressed that others now have to prove themselves at the top level.Britain's captain, John Lloyd, will have the final say on to the make-up of his team, of course, but with the country's No2, Alex Bogdanovic, not being considered, Murray said he expected to see an investment in youth."I think it would make sense to play the younger guys [like] Dan Evans and Jamie Baker," he said. "I am guessing [Lloyd] might take a doubles team, because [Colin] Fleming can play singles, so there's a good chance he will take Fleming and [Ken] Skupski, but I don't know. I would like to see the younger guys go along, I think it makes sense, it's probably the right time."Murray consulted Lloyd before making his decision to withdraw and the captain surely will have understood his choice. The world No4 wants to win a grand slam to confirm his place at the top of the game and adding a trip to the Lithuania to an already crowded schedule would not have been not the most obvious way to enhance his chances in the major events. Any suggestion of a complete abandonment of the Davis Cup is met with an immediate rebuttal, however, and Murray will judge each match on its merits in future. He is certainly in good company, for Roger Federer has skipped Switzerland's first-round ties since he hit the top and Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have made themselves unavailable for Spain and Serbia at times."We spoke about it actually a lot before the last tie," Murray said. "I was just saying that obviously I want to try and play, but also at the same time to look out for myself as well. It's really difficult when you have a match away on clay against Lithuania, right before a long stretch in the States. I think everyone really understands the situation, because I think if they were in my position they would probably do the same thing themselves."It's been 10 or 12 years or so since a British singles player outside of me, Tim [Henman] and Greg [Rusedski] has won a live Davis Cup rubber and it's time for the guys to get used to winning in the Davis Cup, rather than there being so much pressure on them each time they play. So hopefully it's a good opportunity and even without me they've got a good chance of winning the match."After just a couple of days of acclimatising himself to the time change and the heat, Murray will open his year here with a match against Andrey Golubev as Britain play Kazakhstan in their first round-robin match of the mixed-team Hopman Cup. Robson will face Yaroslava Shvedova, who is ranked 51 in the world, in the singles before teaming up with Murray for a mixed doubles. While Murray will enjoy the certainty of playing three matches, for Robson the event will be a good judge of what she is likely to face when she makes a full transition to the seniors, not least a meeting with the world No5, Elena Dementieva of Russia, later in the week."It will be good fun," Murray said. "I've not played a whole lot of mixed doubles. Obviously Laura is our most talented junior. She won the Wimbledon juniors a couple of years ago and she is still so young, only 15. She's grown a lot the past couple of years and I think she's got the chance to be very good."There is an argument that Juan MartÃn Del Potro's victory at the 2009 US Open has elevated the Argentinian above Murray when it comes to likely grand-slam winners, but Murray said little had changed."Right now, tennis is at its best," he said. "Maybe in a couple of years, when Roger won't be playing as well as he is just now [it will be different] so you just need to focus on what's happening right now. Obviously I think I've got a good chance of doing it. It's a very difficult thing to do, but I am not going to have to play any of those guys until the quarter-finals or semi-finals, so it doesn't really make a huge difference."Andy MurrayDavis CupTennisSimon Cambersguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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