Andy Murray legacy now cemented after Davis Cup glory

Jamie Clark, Sports Editor | November 29, 2015

The Davis Cup is a team tennis event, but you wouldn’t know it after singles world number two Andy Murray ended Great Britain’s postwar wait for a title triumph.

Despite Kyle Edmund’s best efforts, taking a 2-0 lead over David Goffin in the opening rubber only to lose 3-2, it is the best player to pick up a racket in the British Isles since Fred Perry that turned this tie with Belgium around, taking an unassailable 3-1 lead.

Coral made Team GB odds-on favourites to capture their first Davis Cup since 1936 for a reason – and that was magnificent Murray. Emulating Perry’s performances 79 years ago, the Scot has now won almost everything worth winning in tennis.

From Davis Cup despair to champions

Straight sets victories over Ruben Bemelmans and Goffin, with a doubles delight alongside brother Jamie sandwiched in between, ensured Andy Murray maintained a 100 per cent Davis Cup rubbers record to end the 2015 campaign with 11 victories.

Eight of those wins were in singles match-ups and have helped to complete the most marked reversal of fortunes for Great Britain since 2010. They were then on the brink of relegation to Europe/Africa Group III, but the appointment of Leon Smith as Davis Cup captain a year later has brought with it a terrific transformation.

Team GB had played all their ties on home soil this year until the final, but an indoor clay surface at the Flanders Expo Centre in Ghent didn’t faze Murray, whose early exit from the ATP World Tour Finals shall now be recorded for posterity as a blessing in disguise.