Jamie Murray profile

Players Under the Microscope / Editor / 02 April 2007 / Leave a Comment

Big Brother is watching over you. At least he is in the Great Britain camp in the countdown to this weekend's Davis Cup action against the Netherlands in Birmingham in the Europe/Africa zone Group One clash. Jamie Murray is set to make his cup debut for Britain - and needs brother Andy fit from his injury scare to fulfil his dream of partnering him in the doubles.

At 21, Jamie Murray is a year and three months older than his more illustrious 'little' brother. The 19-year-old Andy is not so little - they are both 6ft 3in.

The big difference, apart from one being the No 11 in the world at singles while the other is 43 in the doubles rankings, is that Andy is a right hander and Jamie is a lefty - although he plays golf right-handed.

Murray the elder has already made his mark on the doubles circuit this year, winning the Memphis and San Jose titles with American Eric Butorac, since they teamed up after the Australian Open. On top of that he began the year by reaching the semi-finals in Doha with Andy before Britain's rising star decided to concentrate on singles on the men's tour.

The Memphis win with Butorac came at the cost of just one set in the semi-final before they went on to beat Austrians Julian Knowle and Jurgen Melzer 7-5 6-3 in the final.

But San Jose in February was the big thrill because Andy won the singles title before brother Jamie and Butorac took the doubles title without dropping a set in any of their four matches.

They beat South African duo Chris Haggard and German Rainer Schuettler in the final 7-5 7-6 to follow up their Challenger triumph the week before in Dallas.

It meant that Andy and Jamie were the first brothers to win titles at the same ATP tournament since Emilio and Javier Sanchez in Kitzbuhel in 1989.

Now they want to be the first brothers to play for Britain since current team captain John Lloyd and former captain David back in 1980 when John was the singles specialist and David a doubles player.

But will doubles specialist Murray get to play? John Lloyd has plenty of talent available to him with Tim Henman back in the squad for the first time since 2004 and Greg Rusedski available too.
Andy Murray is winning the battle with the groin injury that caused his capitulation in the Miami semi-finals against Novak Djokovic on Friday.

Lloyd also has Richard Bloomfield and Jamie Baker in the squad but Betfair fans will have to wait till later this week before Lloyd confirms his starting line-up.
With Murray nursing an injury will he may give Friday's singles slots to Henman and Rusedski and let the Murray boys team up for Saturday's doubles.