Andy Murray ready to double up to help ease Britain past tough Japanese

Day two will begin with a recurring question for Smith

Andy Murray stretches for a forehand in his singles match against Taro Daniel of Japan during day one of the Davis Cup (Getty)

Dan Evans did his best in front of his home crowd but the first day of Britain’s opening defence of their Davis Cup title ended in familiar fashion here in Birmingham. Andy Murray, who won all eight of his singles rubbers last year and threw in three doubles victories for good measure, was responsible for the lone victory that saw Leon Smith’s team end the opening session level at 1-1 with Japan in a packed 9,000-capacity Barclaycard Arena.

The world No 2 will have plenty more work to do this weekend if Britain are to progress to a World Group quarter-final in July against Serbia or Kazakhstan, who are also tied at 1-1 after the first day.

Murray, playing his first match for nearly five weeks after taking a break following the birth of his first child, was never quite on top form against Taro Daniel but was still much too good for the world No 87, winning 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 in just 90 minutes. Evans, attempting to bridge a gap of 151 places in the rankings against Kei Nishikori, demonstrated once again the ability that belies his position at No 157 in the world order before going down 6-3, 7-5, 7-6 after more than two and a half hours.

Day two will begin with a recurring question for Smith. Will he risk his best player in today’s doubles, knowing that Murray may need to find some of his best tennis in the first of tomorrow’s reverse singles against Nishikori, who will be the highest ranked player he has ever faced in this competition?

Jamie Murray and Dominic Inglot, world No 2 and No 32 in doubles respectively, are Britain’s nominated pair, though changes can be made up to an hour before the start of the match.

Yoshihito Nishioka and Yasutaka Uchiyama, Japan’s nominated team, are ranked No 426 and No 317 in doubles respectively. Even if the visiting team call in Nishikori, their leading man does not have much of a doubles pedigree.

Whoever represents Britain should win, but if Smith is tempted to rest his best player, Murray himself may want to play. It would take a brave captain to overrule him and the indications last night were that the Murray brothers may well play. Smith said that he hoped to field “our strongest team” – the two Murrays – while Andy said after his quickfire singles victory: “I definitely will have saved up enough energy for the weekend.”

Murray had good reason to be pleased with his return to competition. Daniel was good enough to stretch him on plenty of occasions without ever looking capable of causing him serious trouble. If the tie goes to a deciding fifth rubber tomorrow Evans should certainly have no inferiority complex against the world No 87, who is ranked 70 places higher than him but has lost two of their three previous meetings. Murray struck the ball cleanly from the back of the court, served particularly well and flew around the court with all his usual speed and passion against an opponent who got plenty of balls back. From the moment he won the first 11 points of the match there was never any serious doubt about the outcome, though Daniel offered some stronger resistance in the second set.

Evans, who had beaten Nishikori in their only previous meeting at the US Open three years ago, gave the Japanese No 1 plenty of problems with his skidding sliced backhands, big forehands and regular forays to the net.

The 25-year-old’s failure to take more than one of his six break points in the first two sets proved costly, but he responded well after going 2-0 down at the start of the third. Evans broke Nishikori three times in a row, but the world No 6 kept fighting back and went on to win the tie-break 7-3. Evans admitted afterwards that his opponent had simply been “too good”.