Having spent 79 years lamenting Davis Cup tennis as an arcane peculiarity, Great Britain went union jack-waving mad for the newly discovered Most Important Contest in World Sport as Andy Murray led the team to a 3-1 victory over Belgium in the final in Ghent. Murray won both his singles games over Ruben Bemelmens and David Goffin, as well as a doubles win with his brother Jamie to seal Britain’s first triumph since 1936. “I’ve been pretty upset having lost matches before,” he said in the aftermath, “but I’d say that’s probably the most emotional I’ve been after a win. It’s incredible that we managed to win this competition. I didn’t know that would ever be possible. It’s great.”
Russia accepts athletics ban
After a harrowing month for world athletics, the sport made the first steps towards rebuilding its image as the Russian federation accepted a ban from international competition and promised to cooperate with changes to its drug-testing regime. Shockwaves from corruption allegations at athletics’ world governing body continued to resonate, though, forcing IAAF president Lord Coe to resign an ambassadorial role with Nike despite insisting there was no conflict of interest. In more signs of the broadening scandal, Kenyan athletes stormed the headquarters of the sport’s national governing body in an anti-corruption protest, while six Kenyans received four-year bans for failing dope tests.
First day-night Test goes to Aussies
Armed with a new fluorescent pink ball and special permission to stay up past nine o’clock, Australia won cricket’s first day-night Test match, beating New Zealand by three wickets in Adelaide to wrap up a 2-0 series win. Australian bowler Peter Siddle overcame the emotion of his grandmother’s death during the match to hit the winning runs as the game ended inside three days on an Adelaide pitch where matches rarely finish early, perhaps an indication of how floodlights will affect the longer form of the game. In Nagpur, South Africa slipped up on a spin-friendly pitch as India won by 124 runs to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the four-Test series. England, meanwhile, continued their new-found mettle in the T20 form of the game with a series win over Pakistan.
Rosberg ends season with another win
A season that epitomised many of Formula One’s inherent problems ended in Abu Dhabi, with Nico Rosberg’s third successive win. Drivers’ champion Lewis Hamilton finished runner-up for another Mercedes one-two, but with the German team having monopolised the sport for the past two seasons, who other than F1 diehards could relish yet another year of such lopsidedness? Apparently not Fernando Alonso, the two-times former drivers’ champion who has endured such an uncompetitive season with McLaren that he is reportedly contemplating a sabbatical from the sport.
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