Davis Cup: Maclagan lifts weight on famous shoulder

Henman proves his fitness and teams up with boyhood doubles partner to overcome Thai challenge

The Unlikely Lads, one with a dodgy shoulder and the other without any sort of track record in the competition, carved out a victory of immense importance in the crucial doubles match against Thailand in the Davis Cup World Group qualifying tie at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena yesterday. Tim Henman, with his shoulder problem, and Miles Maclagan, never previously tested for nerve and confidence at this level, fought back to overcome Paradorn Srichaphan and Danai Udomchoke 6-7 6-4 7-5 6-2. So Britain lead 2-1 going into today's concluding two singles matches. One more win and they can put this difficult occasion behind them.

Though this was a new Davis Cup doubles pairing for Britain, Henman and Maclagan are friends and contemporaries and as juniors they played a lot of doubles together. Even so, to draft into the team as the injured Greg Rusedski's replacement someone who had actually given up the game and has only returned to it this year, as Maclagan has done, was a serious gamble and Britain's captain, Roger Taylor, earns plaudits for courage.

The requirement in Davis Cup is not necessarily a high ranking but a stout heart, a cool head and the right shots at the crucial time. And this is precisely what Maclagan, who will be 28 tomorrow, produced. He served out the second and third sets with not a flicker of nerves and then, when he was required to do it again, this time with the match on the line, the force was with him.

No wonder he called this "the moment of my life" after he and Henman had embraced at the net at the end of a match which lasted just under three hours. "I have served that match out about 20 times in my room already," he added.

"Miles was called in at the last minute to do a job and he certainly did it today," said Henman. "He has not played Davis Cup for a long time [the last time was 1995]. "My shoulder feels good, it's the rest of my body I'm worried about," he added prior to his singles contest against Srichaphan this afternoon. "I need some of Miles's energy, but hopefully we can finish the job off." He said he would need to wait and see how he felt this morning before a decision could be made about playing.

Henman had declared the shoulder ready for whatever the afternoon might bring after a practice session, much to the relief of Taylor. So the home pairing was as announced, while the Thais ditched their nominated pair and sent into battle their two top singles players. Since they had never played together previously, it was clearly in the hope that ability would count for more than teamwork.

So it proved in the opening set. Having held nervously to love in the first game, Henman dropped serve the next time he stepped forward and Thailand, to the unrestrained glee of their small clique of supporters at courtside, led 3-2. It was short-lived jubilation. Scrichap-han, despite his soaring reputation and ranking, was mixing the brilliant with the banal on serve. He produced a pair of aces, matched by two double faults, before Udomchoke's shot struck the tape and spun out of play.

Having pulled level, Britain immediately put themselves in trouble once more. Maclagan's play and confidence had been admirable; then, from a 40-15 lead, his serve came under attack and capitulated in bizarre fashion when an Udomchoke mishit sailed over the heads of Britain's duo stationed at the net and fell inside the baseline.

The endearingly baggy-panted Udomchoke, seemingly kitted out by Oxfam, was the one player in all of this to remain rock steady on serve as Thailand moved 5-3 ahead and appeared destined to take the set. Then a stirring British fightback had the klaxons blaring and rattles whirring in the 8,000 crowd as the scores were levelled at 5-5.

Henman's happiness was evident in the two full-blooded smashes he walloped in the next game, hardly the sort of stuff expected from a chap with an ailing shoulder. But the disappointment, it turned out, was only to be delayed for the crowd, since the Thais ran away with the tiebreak by seven points to four.

Suitably chuffed, Srichaphan opened his shoulders as the second set got underway, blasting three aces in one game to demonstrate the size of the task facing the British pair. Their response could not have been more resolute as Udomchoke, the one player not to have been broken so far, dropped serve. That turned out to be the sole service break of the second set as the ice-cool Maclagan stepped forward to serve out the set and level the match with an hour and a half played.

Now it was the home team's turn to be pumped up, and the erratic Srichap-han's serve was comprehensively broken in the opening game of the third set. In the next game it seemed the match might come to an unscheduled conclusion when Srichaphan fell in pursuit of a drop shot and lay still. But he walked to his seat and, after treatment to the right knee, carried on and promised last night that he would be fit to play singles today. Britain now appeared in command, Udomchoke seemed to be flagging and when he dropped serve to gift Britain a 6-5 lead it was again left to Maclagan to serve out the set, which he did despite starting with a nervous double fault. So after almost two-and-a-half hours, Britain had their noses in front.

More importantly, Thai morale had plummeted. Two more breaks of serve in the fourth set and Thailand trailed 3-0. All the British pair needed to do was hold nerve and confidence. They managed both comfortably, with Maclagan, of course, serving out safely to win a memorable victory. Taylor called it "a remarkable performance" from the man who has come back from oblivion.