Great Britain secured an opening 2-1 victory over Finland in their Davis Cup Finals Group D contest in Manchester, despite the absence of Jack Draper from the maiden battle.
While the British number one was there to cheer on his teammates, he was not selected for the opening round of matches after his stellar run to the semi-finals of the US Open last week.
In his absence, Dan Evans and Billy Harris got the job done for GB with respective singles victories over Eero Vasa and Otto Virtanen respectively, ensuring victory for the Brits before the final doubles encounter.
Evans returned for the four-way battle alongside Neal Skupski to take on Virtanen and Harri Heliovaara, who restored parity for the Scandinavian nation with a straight-sets win to deny GB a perfect start.
Earlier in the day, Evans - who reached the third round in New York after a forgettable first eight months of 2024 - was pushed to the brink in his first set against world number 703 Vasa but made light work of the second in a 7-6[3] 6-2 victory.
Evans was zero for four on break points in the opening set, missing a couple that would have clinched the opener in the 12th game as Vasa forced a tie-breaker, but the Finnish player double-faulted at the worst possible time after a terrible tie-breaker performance.
Vasa managed to secure an opening hold in his first service game of the second set, but Evans then went on the warpath with a five-game winning sequence and saw out the match with ease against the world number 703, who made 47 unforced errors throughout the battle.
© Imago
Straight after, Harris - who enjoyed a strong grass-court season, reaching the semi-finals at Eastbourne - needed just three more minutes than Evans did to secure his own two-set success, defeating Virtanen 6-4 7-6[4].
The world number 101 excelled going forward with an 82% win rate at the net - triumphing in nine of his 11 close encounters - and was not paid to pay for his wastefulness, only taking two of the nine break chances that came his way.
While the final doubles battle did not impact the result of the tie, Finland denied GB a clean 3-0 sweep with a gritty 7-6[4] 7-5 victory, taking just over two hours to defeat Evans and Skupski.
The third match of the day boiled down to an incredibly tense second-set tie-breaker, where the Brits wasted three chances for 6-6 and the Finnish duo squandered three match point, but the fourth time was the charm for the Scandinavians.
GB's 2-1 victory in Manchester puts them second in the Group D standings behind Canada, who also triumphed 2-1 over Argentina despite losing their doubles match but sit first owing to a superior percentage of sets won, 71% compared to 67% for the Brits.
What next for GB in Davis Cup?
Great Britain's second Davis Cup tie of the week pits them against Argentina on Friday at the Manchester Arena, where Evans will be first up against Francisco Cerundolo, before Draper meets Sebastian Baez.
Skupski will then be after a shot at doubles redemption alongside Henry Patten in the doubles encounter, where Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni will be their opponents.
Ben Knapton
