Davis Cup II E/A Rnd 2 - GB v Luxembourg Rubber #3: Murray/Murray v Bram/Vermeer

Meh – Lorne sausage at the hotel hadn’t been as nice as the one I’d had for breakfast the day before (and that had been my first), so felt diddled out of my Full Scottish this morning as I headed off to the arena.

This time I had seats closer to the court, and close to the Stirling University cheering mob (and was opposite the am.com crew).
This was going to be a bit of a treat as the brothers don’t play together very often, mainly main tour events for Andy to help Jamie’s ranking up a little bit, as with their (first) title together at Valencia (and of course their outings at the Olympics in Beijing).



The support from Stirling University can be best described as consistently raucous with all manner of chants and songs at any available opportunity. Young Mike Vermeer is 18, but honestly (especially standing next to Laurent Bram) he looked about 12!



So when the Stirling guys started singing “school on Monday…. You’re going to school on Monday” everyone was cracking up. Even more so when they started chanting “who stole your Milky Bars”, although it’s debatable whether Vermeer would have even known what a Milky Bar was!!! Someone from am.com afterwards also commented on a chant of “Where’s Your Yoghurt gone…” Initially I thought that yoghurt was some kind of Luxembourgish breakfast staple but it was, of course, a reference to Muller… duh!



Anyway – the tennis!
Things went with serve as the Luxembourg partnership were working well together. Jamie did have some sticky holds and the guys had some chances, especially later in the first set to get a break but just couldn’t seal the deal, until with Vermeer serving at 5-6, they got the breakthrough to take the first set 7-5.




In the second set, we got glimpses of Jamie at his “Stretch” best – really finding his form at the net and they got a break early on and held. A second break with Luxembourg serving at 2-5 gave the second set to the brothers.





Another Stirling gem was “Leave it to Jamie” when an over enthusiastic Andy yelled “I’ve got it” for a shot that was way closer to Jamie…





The brothers were hitting their stride well, although Jamie did have the longer holds against his serve, they romped away with it in the third set after taking an early break. Luxembourg got themselves on the board in the final two games, but went down 1-6 in the third set.






Back to Wetherspoons for a swift half before meeting up with my cousins, my aunt and some of my extended family.