Murray has opted to stay in Florida — where he beat Gilles Simon on Tuesday to reach the quarter-finals of the Sony Ericsson Open — and practice with his new coach, Ivan Lendl, in preparation for the clay-court season. He knows that Davis Cup defeat would not be a disaster, because Great Britain cannot be relegated from Europe/Africa Zone Group One whatever happens.
“I spoke to Leon early in the year,” Murray explained recently, “and I said that the goal this year would be to try and stay in the group that we’re in. Yes, we could be in the World Group [the elite nations, one step up from Group One] but just now I believe that this is really the level that we’re at.”<<read more>>