Having spent a month away from tennis after becoming a father, Andy Murray returned to the court today to give the Great Britain team the perfect start in their defence of the Davis Cup.
Murray required just 89 minutes to beat Taro Daniel, Japan’s second-string singles player, 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 at Birmingham’s Barclaycard Arena and underlined his insistence that he is fully committed to Britain retaining the title they won last November.
The world No 2, last seen losing the Australian Open final to Novak Djokovic in January, certainly looked like a man on a mission. He was playing against an opponent ranked 85 places below him and, for most of the match, clearly out of his depth. Daniel did not win any of the first 11 points of the match and although thereafter he summoned up some token resistance, there was little stopping his opponent.
Murray is playing with mixed emotions this weekend. He is delighted to be back with his team-mates but misses his home every moment he spends away from new daughter Sophia. “The last few weeks have been the best of my life and it’s been really special,” he said. “It’s been a tough last few days being away from her for the first time, not easy. It’s a pleasure to come and represent my country and be with all the team-mates again.”
Nerves were clearly jangling for Daniel, 23, who had never previously played in front of a crowd of 9,000 and admitted previously that if there was a fitting song to play on his entrance to the arena it should be Led Zeppelin’s Dazed and Confused.
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“My lack of experience was obvious,” Daniel said. “He’s the second best player in the world and if you don’t do your best against him then it’s going to slip away pretty quickly. When you feel nervous then it’s hard to get your level up positively.
“Even when I felt like I was getting into it in the second set, he was always hitting aces and never really let me in.”
Murray breezed through the first set in just 28 minutes before Daniel found the power to summon some resistance. Ring-rust was clearly going to be a factor and Murray made a couple of unusual errors, the most spectacular a glaringly mis-hit overhead straight into the net.
Finally he broke serve again when Daniel, plagued by double faults, stuttered with his service again before Murray got back into dominant form, finishing off with a 15th ace.
“The second set and third set were tough,” the Scot admitted. “A lot of close games and tough points which was good for me because I haven’t played for a long time. I was getting a little bit out of breath.”