Great Britain suffered the humiliation of being relegated to Group Two of Euro-Africa zone after the failed to defeat Poland in Liverpool.

The result is yet more fuel for the LTA haters – whilst I agree that LTA are truly awful, on this occasion so much of the blame must go on John Lloyd – he could even pick a winning team if he was running the Spanish team and they were playing on Clay.

First off – He should have never have let Andy Murray play doubles – he let Murray decide if he was fit enough to play and like all sportsmen they are too proud to say no. Secondly when will they pick a doubles team to play rather than a one doubles specialist – Fleming and Skupski have been a revelation this year and with the event in Skupski’s home town it would have made for an excellent debut.

The other singles player – far too early to throw 19 year old Dan Evans in, I know he was not first choice, but he was still way out of his depth – I would have even more happy with Bogdanavic playing second singles player. And why o why do they schedule our number 2 as the second player, after losing the doubles, we had no hope winning that 5th match, too much pressure for a 19 year old Davis cup debutant – especially when they are pampered British players who don’t quite have that “fire in their bellies” to dig deep to pull out a win.

James Ward, British no.2 would have played if he had been fit – but even still it may just be a little early for him – history tells us that young British players don’t do well in Davis cup when they are flung in and win is needed.

Britain next year will have to first win their 2nd division match – if they do that they will then have the chance in a playoff to win in entry into division 1 in 2011. If that goes successfully they will need to repeat this feat to gain entry into the world group in 2012. At the moment winning a 2nd division match looks tough!

The USA and Spain both took control of their matches finishing day 1 of Davis cup Quarter final with a 2-0 lead. In the other two matches the score was deadlock at 1-1.

Scores after day 1

• RUSSIA 1, CZECH REPUBLIC 1
• ARGENTINA 1, SWEDEN 1
• SPAIN 2, GERMANY 0
• UNITED STATES 2, FRANCE 0

Andy Roddick first seen off Michael Llodra in a toughly fought set, that needed two tie breakers. In the second James Blake saved two matchpoints to win a five-set epic against Paul-Henri Mathieu, securing only third five-set win in the 11 matches he has played.

David Ferrer fought back to defeat Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-7 6-3 6-4 6-2 to give his Spannish team a 2-0 lead and are now one win away from reaching the Davis Cup semifinals for the first time in 4 years. Ferrer took to the court after Rafael Nadal’s comfortable straight-sets win over Nicolas Kiefer.

Marat Safin over came Tomas Berdych’s in a thrilling five setter. Savin produced one of his best performances in years as he came from two sets down for the first time in his career, to win 6-7(5-7) 4-6 6-3 6-2 6-4. Radek Stepanek struck back to level the tie with a straight sets victory over Igor Andreev.

Robin Soderling beat Jose Acasuso to give Sweden a vital point, defeating the Argentine easily 6-0 6-4 6-1, to square the tie after David Nalbandian had given Argentina the lead with a less comfortable win over Thomas Johansson in Buenos Aires, eventually winning 6-2 5-7 6-4 6-2.

Jamie Baker earned the UK a consolation point today as Argentina completed a 4-1 victory in the Davis Cup in Buenos Aires.

Argentina had allready secured the World Group tie in the doubles yesterday, and a white wash look on the cards when their lead was extended when Jose Acasuso beat Alex Bogdanovic 7-5 7-5 earlier today. But world number 235 Jamie Baker then upset the odds with a good 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 win over Agustin Calleri, ranked 41 in the world.

Brittain now face the prospect of a play off to stay in the elite top 16 world group.

Jamie Baker, the young glaswegian said after the match,

We came down here for an unbelievably tough ask, I’d like to say a massive thank you to our captain, John (Lloyd)….During the whole circumstances surrounding Andy Murray not coming, John hasn’t faltered, he’s been so positive, and I wouldn’t rather have anyone else with me out on the court.

He’s gone and done it again – Andy Murray has given more people more reason to criticise and complain. On Wednesday he pulled out of the team citing a recurring knee problems.

The problem with his pull out is not that he is trying preserve his fitness in order to push further up the rankings, but rather the contrived way he has went about it. He had his agent call David Lloyd to tell him he was pulling out, rather than talk personally with the GB coach.

Clearly Murray is not injured enough to actually not compete, it’s a very simple case of choosing self over country. Players do it all the time, the great Roger Federer does not play every game for his country, but he doesn’t hide behind fantasy injuries.

The course Andy should have taken is simple, Phoned David Lloyd and told them that he doesn’t want to play for fear of injuring himself further because he wants to stay fit for the rest of the year. Then publicly announce – It’s that simple and his motives would be seen to be genuine.

There would still be people who still wouldn’t be happy with this – but the only thing open to discussion would be simply whether or not you agree with putting self before country and with that he would find a lot of support in the tennis and sporting world.

I personally feel that he should have went, if he was too injured to play, i’m sure supporting the team from the bench would have kept all his team mates happy and behind him.