Rob McLean - John Lloyd was on a hiding to nothing
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, the legendary British comedians used to do a sketch called 'the worst job he ever had', which is not suitable for a family newspaper, sorry, blog.
The title could soon be applied to John Lloyd, the British Davis Cup captain, who has the poisoned chalice, but probably not for much longer. Lloyd, nice bloke that he is, will probably go after losing all five of his matches as leader and Britain dropping to their lowest point in the history of the competition.
But it is hard to see who could do better. We lost 3-2 but if we had had our best player, Andy Murray, we would have won 3-1.
Roger Draper, the LTA chief executive, has ordered a review of the situation but we have been down that road many times before. He won't fall on his sword. Just as predictable was Lloyd's brother, David, another underachieving former Davis Cup captain, coming out of the woodwork again to denounce Draper.
Call for Tim Henman or Greg Rusedski? Henman spends most of his time on the golf course and Rusedski works for television, however one report suggested Rusedski 'covets' the job.
Our nine Davis Cup triumphs, the last in 1936 - a familiar era when talking about the merits of British tennis - seem light years away. We are not expecting to reach those heights again, we just want a victory, just one, against anyone.
You have to have a heart of stone not to feel sorry for Dan Evans. Two matches and two five-set defeats in Lithuania and now an overall Davis Cup record of four losses.
When I looked at the schedule and realised that he might have to win the deciding rubber, I wasn't filled with much confidence after his displays in the defeat against Poland.
You can't fault Evans' effort but back in September he looked like a player who wanted to be anywhere but on a tennis court - a rabbit caught in the headlights who showed classic signs of nerves by rushing his service games.
Tommy Haas has the sort of spirit that GB could do with and he would be grateful to just go a year or so without injury. He has to be one of the unluckiest players on the tour. A newspaper headliner's dream with the 'kick Haas/ass line', his career has been punctuated by injury after injury. To cap it all he is probably the only tennis pro to get swine flu.
The latest misfortune to befall the 31-year-old German, once the No 2 player in the world and last year's Wimbledon semi-finallist, is a hip injury which will require surgery.
Haas's catalogue of woe could fill a medical dictionary and includes two broken ankles and three shoulder operations. He also took a year out of the game to look after his parents were injured in a serious car accident.
He will now be out for several months but can look to the example of Austrian Thomas Muster who was run over by a drunk driver in Florida in 1989, severing ligaments in his left knee.
With the help of a special chair designed to allow him to practice hitting balls while recovering from knee surgery, Muster returned to competitive tennis just six months later and went on to win the French Open.
READ ROB MCLEAN EXCLUSIVELY AT TENNIS.CO.UK EVERY TUESDAY
Date published :
09 Mar 201007:44:49
