Great Britain stand joint third with France in the list of all-time Davis Cup wins, but the last of their victories came back in 1936, which was also the year in which Fred Perry won the last two of his eight Grand Slams.

Since the Perry era Britain have largely assumed the role of bit-part players, with the exception of a brief resurgence in the late 1970s with a team comprising the Lloyd brothers, John and David, and Buster Mottram.

Great Britain made it back into the final in 1978, Mottram and John Lloyd scoring singles wins to upset Australia at Crystal Palace and set up a decider against the United States at Rancho Mirage in California.

Unfortunately, the Britons were to run into a fast-rising teenage sensation named John McEnroe, who beat both Lloyd and Mottram for the loss of just five games each as the US claimed the Davis Cup trophy with relative ease.

Great Britain found themselves in the Euro-African Zone Group II when Canadian-born Greg Rusedski announced his intention to adopt British citizenship and form a formidable pairing with the emerging Tim Henman.

In 1998 the pair secured a victory over India which finally took them back into the Davis Cup's elite and a glamorous home tie against the United States which they lost, agonisingly, when Jim Courier beat Rusedski 8-6 in the final set of the fifth rubber.

Recently, Great Britain made it back into the World Group in 2008, but without number one Andy Murray they were predictably beaten by Argentina in Buenos Aires.