No. 4 Andy Murray has said that if the Lawn Tennis Association fires captain John Lloyd, the players should be heard in who is selected as the next captain.
Murray, who didn’t play in Britain’s Davis Cup 3-2 loss to Lithuania, wouldn’t say whether he would play under Greg Rusedski, who has publicly stated his desire for the captaincy.
“It’s a difficult one because John won four or five in a row at the start and got us into the World Group with Tim [Henman] coming back, Greg playing, my brother [Jamie] playing good doubles at time and I was playing well -- we had a good team,” said Murray at Indian Wells. “It’s the LTA’s decision if they keep him in place but if John does lose his job, the players should have a strong say in who they think the captain should be and then go to the LTA and say this is who we would like.
"If they don’t want him at least we have voiced our opinion. Then the LTA will have an idea of who we want and come to a decision based on that. It’s very important that the players are comfortable with who captain is, especially after we lost to Lithuania and how brutal the press has been. But I’m not going to start throwing names out there.”
Murray also struck out at those who have been criticizing British tennis as a whole. A number of analysts have called for a reorganization of the LTA and other have suggested that heads should roll after Britain lost its fifth consecutive tie.
“Everyone is disappointed,” Murray said. “It wasn’t one of British tennis' best days, but we are at a pretty low point and I’m fed up [with] reading negative stuff all the time and constant bashing. They’re needs to be more constructive things with what we need to do to improve as a nation.
"Every time I read something, it’s build more courts and gets more kids too play. I agree, but how are we going to teach them how to play?…We need to have a way of teaching the tennis the same way [like Spain does] and the kids need to learn to play the game properly and they don’t. Everyone has to teach the same way.”—Matthew Cronin