Tennis pros Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have voiced their concern over Canada’s decision to hand America a walk over in the Davis Cup final.
The Canadians, who had already won the group stage match against America, said that their players weren’t fit to play against the Americans in the dead rubber doubles final. The Americans were awarded the match by 6-0, 6-0, which has ruffled quite a few feathers in the international professional men circuit.
Andy Murray from Great Britain voiced his discontent first and mentioned that this wasn’t good. “I think that when we spoke in here yesterday, I was saying I felt like one of the positive things to the way the group stages work is that all of the matches are live, there aren’t any dead rubbers. And, I believe they also would have had two days off as well after that so I think they should have played the tie,” said Murray.
World No.2 Novak Djokovic also mentioned that he heard the news recently and didn’t like it personally. “I personally don’t like that. I mean, that shouldn’t be allowed, to be honest. I understand that Canada is through already, they won both of their ties. Maybe some of the players like Felix, I think he’s injured, and they wanted to rest their players for the quarterfinals and onwards. But I just feel it’s not fair that the USA gets 6-0 6-0 because they are going actually head-to-head now against Italy. But I also understand it wouldn’t be fair if you just don’t give a point, you know, because USA was ready to play doubles. So I don’t know. But I think everyone should be obliged to come out and play, at least play,” said the world number 2.
A statement by the ITF clarified that USA were given the win because three players from the Canadian team were declared unfit by an independent doctor. The lack of professionalism, however, hasn’t gone down well with the pros of the game.