‘Kids these days’: Andy Murray unimpressed by Jack Draper’s Davis Cup celebrations
Andy Murray was left unimpressed by Jack Draper’s celebrations as the two British tennis players shared a car journey home from a thrilling Davis Cup win over France.
Great Britain advanced to the last eight of the competition as Dan Evans and Neal Skupski won a deciding tie break against France’s Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin.
Evans and Skupski saved four match points on their way to an eventual 1-6 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (8-6) win.
Given plenty of support from a home crowd at Manchester’s AO Arena, Evans had earlier one his singles tie against Arthur Fils, but Cameron Norrie was beaten by Ugo Humbert to set up the winner-takes-all doubles contest.
But the British pair delivered for captain Leon Smith, allowing Great Britain to go through to the “Final Eight” knockout phase of the men’s team competition in Malaga in November.
Murray and Draper elected to make a reasonably swift getaway and travel back down to their homes in the south of England.
A video posted by the Scot to his Instagram story showed the three-time grand slam winner driving his 21-year-old colleague home, with Draper belting out the chorus of The Proclaimers’ “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” while chugging what appeared to be a beer.
Murray, in the driver’s seat, wore a frown, before swearing at his younger teammate, later captioning the clip: “Kids these days...three and a half hours of this on the way home”.
The 13,000-strong crowd in Manchester was a record for a Davis Cup tie in the United Kingdom.
“The doubles was chaos,” Evans said. “I just kept saying to Neal ‘we’ve got a chance, we’ve got a chance’ and we both kept going. We stuck together.
“It’s emotional. You want to be with these guys in the finals. It’s an immensely proud moment for me and the team.”
Britain finished as Group B winners, while Australia also went through having beaten Switzerland on Saturday.
Serbia, Italy, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland and the Netherlands complete the Final Eight.
