Great Britain will have to beat France in Sunday’s Davis Cup clash if they are to qualify for the quarter-finals of the competition.
Australia’s 3-0 success against Switzerland on Sunday sent them through to the final eight week in Malaga in November, and the winner of the final group clash at Manchester’s AO Arena will join them.
Britain have performed excellently so far, beating Australia and Switzerland 2-1, but the nature of the other results means only another win will be enough.
Captain Leon Smith has used all four of his singles players across the two ties so far and now faces a tricky decision about who to field on Sunday.
Jack Draper and Dan Evans both claimed strong wins against Australia while Andy Murray ground out an epic win against young Swiss Leandro Riedi before Cameron Norrie was beaten by Stan Wawrinka.
“Everyone’s played now,” said Smith. “We’ve got a full deck of cards to play with on Sunday. Ultimately we’ll go with what we think’s the best option for Sunday but everyone’s available, everybody’s ready to go.
“You’re not always going to get the decisions right, and there’s not a right answer most of the time. You can look at match-ups as much as you want but there’s other equations in there.
“Genuinely this time round it feels like everyone’s in it together in the right way, everyone’s been totally accepting of any decisions that I’ve made. There’s not been any ill feeling towards it at all.
“There’s always going to be disappointment because these guys are great players, they all want to play.”
Draper and Evans, who will also play in the doubles rubber with Neal Skupski, are perhaps the front runners, although Murray famously has a great record against both French players and left-handers and has won all three of his previous meetings with number two Adrian Mannarino.
A crowd of more than 13,000, a record for a single day of Davis Cup action in the UK, is expected.
