Great Britain left to rue missed chances again as Germany book place in the Davis Cup semi-finals

A familiar tale of German superiority in the shootouts saw Great Britain bundled out the Davis Cup quarter final on Tuesday night.

After Dan Evans had put GB one up at a locked down Innsbruck Olympiahalle, neither Cam Norrie nor the British doubles pairing could grab their chances in two desperately tight matches.

Germany now head on to the climax of the event in Madrid, thanks to a 7-6, 7-6 victory for Tim Puetz and Kevin Krawietz over fellow top-20 players Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski.

Germany celebrate after beating Great Britain to reach the last four in the Davis Cup

Just when the GB duo looked set to take a supremely high quality encounter into a decider they subsided from 5-0 up in the tiebreak to lose it 7-5 amid a flurry of winners. In a marathon first tiebreak, they’d had four set points and saved three before going down 12-10.

The GB team looked devastated afterwards: ‘Everyone is gutted,’ said Leon Smith. 

‘We’ve had some good days, but this is a tough day to swallow. Can’t fault any of the guys’ efforts or the team bench. Everyone gave their best effort. Let’s be honest, the sets could have gone either way.’

Salisbury was particularly disappointed, saying: ‘They played well at the end of the second-set tiebreak, but we didn’t. I mean, we’re 5-Love up, we should win the tiebreak, simple as that. They came up with some good shots, but we missed some. I had two points on serve. Played two bad points. We lost seven points in a row. There is no team in the world that we should play the way we do that.

Joe Salisbury (L) and Neal Skupski were beaten by German pair Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz

‘We tried our best but just wasn’t good enough. We are gutted how it turned out, but also just very disappointed at the level, especially myself. It was just not good throughout the match.’

Earlier, Britain had the opportunity to put the tie out of reach when Norrie was eventually worn down by a relentless performance from the huge hitting Jan-Lennard Struff. 

The British No 1 served for the first set at 6-5 and then had two set points in the ensuing tiebreak, only to lose the last four points after getting into a 6-4 lead.

He looked slightly weary in the decider, conceding the last four games to go down 7-6, 2-6, 6-2.

First up, Evans had made light of a late switch from Germany which saw Peter Gojowczyk come in for Dominik Koepfer. Despite having prepared to meet a left hander, Evans thrashed his opponent 6-2, 6-1.