5th March 2009
Goodall has been working closely with Roberto Forzoni, who helped Murray
If the International Tennis Federation awarded style points for designer stubble, Britain’s Davis Cup team would have already won this tie against Ukraine after all four players turned up for Thursday’s draw ceremony in Glasgow with facial hair.
Still, with Britain fielding their most inexperienced team in history, most had already imagined that this was potentially going to be an extremely hairy weekend for the Lawn Tennis Association and everyone on the British tennis scene.
Britain, a grand slam nation with all the riches from Wimbledon, has a team who, between them are yet to win a set in the Davis Cup.
Andy Murray’s virus has meant that Josh Goodall and Chris Eaton will make their first appearances in the competition during Friday’s singles rubbers, and Colin Fleming is scheduled to feature in the Cup for the first time when he partners Ross Hutchins, a veteran of two previous ties, in Saturday’s all-important doubles rubber.
At a tie of unexpected call-ups, the most unexpected of all must be Fleming’s, as only a few months ago, he was still a student, completing a finance degree at Stirling University. This is the 24-year-old’s second go at a career in professional tennis, as he stopped playing the first time to spend three years at university. Fleming presumably decided that his prospects were better in the British tennis world than they were in the financial world, and he returned to the sport, with his singles ranking now at 580 in the world and his doubles rating at 289.
One of the reasons that Fleming came back to tennis was for the opportunity to compete in the Davis Cup, and that ambition will be achieved when he and Hutchins play Sergiy Stakhovsky and Sergei Bubka Jnr. Fleming’s inclusion does not just ensure that Britain has a graduate in the team; it also means that a tie played in Scotland will at least feature someone who is from north of Hadrian’s Wall. Of course, John Lloyd, Britain’s smooth-chinned captain, can change the line-up ahead of the rubber, but it would be impressive if Fleming could partner Hutchins to a victory so soon after swapping student life for his second tennis life. Hutchins’ two previous doubles rubbers, when he partnered Jamie Murray in last season’s ties against Argentina and Austria, brought straight-sets defeats.
Maybe Goodall, the world No 192 and Britain’s first singles nomination, brought out the razor last night or early Friday morning before the noon start. Or maybe not. One thing is for sure: the rookie’s preparations for playing Illya Marchenko, the world No 224 and Ukraine’s second-choice singles player, at the Braehead Arena, have included buying earrings in the surrounding shopping mall. Goodall, a superstitious 23-year-old from Basingstoke, likes to have new jewellery on his earlobes for important matches.
Goodall’s more demanding superstition is that he goes out of his way to avoid stepping inside the tramlines between points. He would not be the first person in professional tennis to have an unnatural fear of the painted bits on a court. However, preparing for a Davis Cup tie by buying £15 earrings from the jewellers, HM Samuel, must surely be a first, even in the strange world of British tennis. Goodall has also had a ‘lucky’ neck-chain repaired. This, remember, is the same man who implored his mother to wash his ‘lucky’ kit of red shorts and a white T-shirt before last week’s play-offs at the National Tennis Centre in London.
Goodall had never previously attended a tie, whether in the stands as a spectator or on the bench as a hitting-partner or orange-boy, but he has been working closely with sports psychologist Roberto Forzoni, the man who helped Murray when he was coming back from his wrist injury in 2007.
Lloyd opted for Eaton as his second singles player, rather than the travelling and higher ranked James Ward, and mainly because of Eaton’s victory over his rival at the play-offs that took almost seven hours. Eaton, a serve-and-volleyer ranked 383, will face Stakhovsky, Ukraine’s best player and the world No 125.
For all the talk of designer stubble and budget-price earrings, this weekend promises to be about substance rather than style. Britain must win the tie if Lloyd’s team are to feature in September’s World Group play-offs. If Britain lose, they will have to play a relegation tie to avoid dropping down the groups in the Euro-African Zone.