Players should have say in Davis Cup captaincy, says Andy Murray

Published on Friday 12 March 2010 23:04

ANDY Murray wants Britain's top players to be consulted about who captains the Davis Cup team.

The Scot missed last weekend's embarrassing 3-2 defeat away to Lithuania which left John Lloyd's team's within just one defeat of falling to the lowest level of the international team competition.

Murray believes the players should be asked for their views if Lloyd is sacked or decides to leave – and also when the subject of a replacement is discussed.

He explained: "The LTA have to decide whether they want to keep John in place. But if he does lose his job then I would like to think the players would have a voice. I'm not saying players should decide solely on who the captain should be – I don't think that's right – but I think the players should have a strong say.

"It's not me that's having the say, it's the players collectively. I don't want to be responsible for everything in British tennis.

"That would involve getting all the players sitting down and discussing who all the possible candidates are to be the captain and then who the players are most comfortable with.

"We can at least go to the LTA or Roger Draper (the chief executive] or whoever and say 'this is who we would like'. And if they don't want them, then that's fine, but at least we've voiced our opinion and then we have got to wait and see what happens."

Murray wants those criticising the players and the team to keep quiet unless they can offer constructive ways to make things better.

He added: "I'm fed up of just reading negative stuff all the time and just constant bashing. I think there need to be some more constructive things, people actually coming forward with ideas of what to do to improve, how we can get better as a nation.

"Every time I read something, it's like 'just build more courts and get more kids playing', which I agree with, but there needs to be (a description of] how you do that. How many courts, where do you put them, how many kids do you need playing and how you're going to teach them how to play tennis?"

Murray was talking in California, where he is competing in the Indian Wells ATP Master Series tournament, where he starts in the second round tomorrow.

Former world No 1 Carlos Moya survived a shaky second set to scrape through 7-6, 7-6 against American qualifier Tim Smyczek in the first round yesterday.