Andy Murray will play in Great Britain’s opening tie in the Davis Cup finals this morning.
Captain Leon Smith has considered resting his fellow Scot against the Netherlands – the easiest match in Group E.
But the former world No.1, who has not played since winning the title in Antwerp last month, will start the first match against world No.179 Tallon Griekspoor.
British No.1 Dan Evans will then play the second match against world No.163 Robin Haase.
Teams are allowed to delay naming the doubles pairing till later with Jamie Murray and Neal Skupski likely to play.
Andy Murray, who underwent a second hip operation in January, had said he could struggle to play every day in the revamped tournament with the group stages followed by three knockout rounds.
“Five matches in five days would be difficult for sure,” said the world No.125 who will the No.2 singles player. “I did it in Antwerp but it was tough. And I’ve also since then had a bit of a break as well, where I didn’t train and practice as much.”
But Dutch captain Paul Haarhius, whose side lost to Kazakhstan in the opening Group E fixture yesterday,bristled at the idea of Britain putting out a weaker team without Murray.
“If they rest him, they must be thinking he is not good enough,” said the former doubles world No.1.
“Because why would you rest him? He is dying to play tennis, I think. He didn’t play tennis for six, seven, eight, nine, ten months or whatever.
“If they rest him, I don’t think he is ready. I think he is ready. He won Antwerp – an ATP event. If he wasn’t ready to play, he wouldn’t go and win those events. We will see who we play.
“It won’t change our approach. We are not going to say: Oh, if Andy plays, we are going to change it because we have some guy on the tour who owns Andy with a 10-0 record against him’. We are not going to put him on the team so it doesn’t change anything.”
Match schedule
Match 1 – Andy Murray v Tallon Griekspoor
Match 2 – Dan Evans v Robin Haase
Match 3 – Doubles TBC
