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Cameron Norrie will miss Great Britain’s Davis Cup tie with Ecuador this weekend, with qualification for November’s eight-team finals on the line.<\/b><\/p>\n
British number two Norrie felt pain in his arm during a practice session and will be replaced in Saturday’s singles by world number 95 Toby Samuel.<\/p>\n
“He wasn’t able to accelerate on the ball like he wanted to,” Davis Cup captain Leon Smith told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“It’s nothing major, but there’s still a lot of tennis to be played this year and with that in mind, we had to make the difficult decision to replace him.”<\/p>\n
Great Britain have not reached the knockout stage of the competition since 2023, and they will have to do so this time with an inexperienced team.<\/p>\n
Jack Draper has ended his difficult season early, while Jan Choinski and Jacob Fearnley are both unavailable with injury.<\/p>\n
It means Samuel will make his Davis Cup debut against Andres Andrade in Saturday’s first match, with British number one Arthur Fery following against Alvaro Guillen Meza.<\/p>\n
Both of Ecuador’s singles players are outside the world’s top 200, but Fery’s only previous appearance for his country was in Poland last September.<\/p>\n
Asked if he was concerned about the lack of experience, Smith said: “I’m not sure it concerns me, but it is obviously a factor.<\/p>\n
“Neal [Skupski] is in the team, Cam is staying with the team. I’ve had 16 years at this so I can hopefully help a little bit.<\/p>\n
“But you want them to experience this. You have to start somewhere and I have a lot of confidence in Arthur, Toby and our doubles team.<\/p>\n
“If they can put out the level of tennis we’ve seen over the course of the summer and before that, they’ll give themselves a good opportunity.”<\/p>\n
British number seven Harry Wendelken, who is at a career-high world ranking of 175, was at the Copper Box as a practice partner and has been added to the team in Norrie’s absence.<\/p>\n
World number one Henry Patten will team up with new US Open champion Neal Skupski for Sunday’s doubles, which precedes two reverse singles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n