Andy Murray relaunched Britain’s bid for a long-awaited place in the semi-finals of the Davis Cup after sweeping aside Italy’s Andreas Seppi 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 in their postponed rubber to level the tie in Naples on Saturday.
World number eight Murray had won the first set on Friday but had to save four set points on his way to levelling the second set at 5-5 before poor light stopped play.
The Briton, who on Thursday had suffered a stomach bug, resumed in positive fashion at the Tennis Club Napoli breaking Seppi at 5-5 when the Italian netted a weak return and holding serve to win the second set 7-5.
Seppi gave Britain’s sizeable travelling support a brief scare when he broke Murray in the fourth game of the third set after the Scot double faulted at 15-30 then sent a return into the tramlines to give the Italian a 3-1 lead. It seemed only to stiffen Murray’s resolve, although the Scot met plenty of resistance on his way to breaking back in the next game after Seppi double faulted at serve.
Seppi was less resolute as Murray served out to level and then allowed his opponent to break again in the next game to pull 4-3 ahead. From then on, Murray had little trouble and as Seppi’s confidence began to drain the Scot went on to seal the set 6-3 with relative ease.
CzechS advance
Tokyo: The Czech Republic advanced to the semi-final of the Davis Cup on Saturday, beating Japan in the doubles match to give the defending champions an insurmountable 3-0 lead.
Radek Stepanek and lukas Rosol backed up their wins in Friday’s singles by combining to beat Tatsuma Ito and Yasutaka Uchiyama 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 at Ariake Colisseum.