Great Britain into Davis Cup Finals as doubles pair finish off Ecuador

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After singles victories for Arthur Fery and Toby Samuel on Saturday at London’s Copper Box, Henry Patten and Neal Skupski clinched the tie at the earliest opportunity with a 6-3 6-4 win against Gonzalo Escobar and Diego Hidalgo in the doubles rubber.

Britain therefore join three-time defending champions Italy, Germany, Canada, Czechia, South Korea and Austria in booking their spot for the eight-team event in Bologna.

It is the first time Leon Smith’s side have reached the quarter-finals since 2023, when they were beaten by Novak Djokovic’s Serbia in Malaga.

Smith said: “I’m absolutely delighted for the guys. It’s been obviously quite a few years since we featured in the final eight.

“We’ve been to a few places since then – Japan, Poland, Norway – so I think it’s great for everyone to look forward to an end of year like that. I’m really pleased how each of the players has gone about things.”

Whoever they draw – and as a non-seed they could find themselves up against the likes of Italy or Spain – they will face a much stiffer test than that provided by Ecuador.

The South American outsiders gave their all to the task in the hope of repeating their famous victory in the competition at Wimbledon in 2000 but were outclassed by Smith’s men.

Britain are the leading nation in men’s doubles and it would have been a huge upset had world number one Patten and new US Open champion Skupski not prevailed.

They had played together only once before – Patten’s sole previous appearance – in a tie against Canada two years ago but gelled quickly, breaking serve at the first opportunity.

There was a moment of contention on the first point of the second set when umpire Marijana Veljovic ruled that Escobar had hit a volley while leaning across the net, awarding Britain the point.

The Ecuador duo put their anger aside to hold serve but a return winner from Skupski earned them another break in the ninth game, and Patten served out the victory.

“We’re very, very happy to get it done in the first match,” said Patten. “I think we played a good one.”

Smith will now hope his players both perform strongly and avoid injury across the two months before the finals begin on November 24.

He already knows he will be without Jack Draper, who has called an early end to his injury-hit campaign as he bids to recover from bone bruising in his arm, while Cameron Norrie missed this tie with a minor arm problem.

“There’s some really, really good teams, but we’re also a really good team,” said Smith.

“We’ve got a lot of belief, we’ve got a good group to choose from. It’s over to them now who performs the best between now and then. It would be good to have some difficult choices to make.

“You’ve seen the players that have played this weekend and others will, I presume, come in, whether that’s [Jannik] Sinner, [Carlos] Alcaraz.

“It’s going to tough but that’s exactly why you want to be in the final eight, you want that excitement. It’s important to be a part of it and we’ll have a chance whoever we play.”