Ask a casual tennis fan to identify the five Britons who entered the men’s doubles here, and the one most likely to draw blank looks would be Dominic “Dom The Bomb” Inglot.
Jamie Murray is a member of tennis’s first family, Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins have been Davis Cup regulars, and Jonny Marray won Wimbledon in 2012. Whereas Inglot’s biggest claim to fame used to be that he acted as Paul Bettany’s body double in a Hollywood film, also called Wimbledon.
But all that will change, in time, if Inglot – a 6ft 4in behemoth with a 140mph serve – continues to be the last man standing in these events. It is now a year since any of the other British men outperformed him at a grand slam.
Having come into the Australian Open as British No 1 in doubles – a title he claimed for the first time just over a week ago — Inglot and Filipino partner Treat Huey scored a fine win on Sunday over seventh seeds Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi. They will play in the quarter-finals tonight.
Asked yesterday whether the No 1 ranking was important to him, the ever-chatty Inglot replied: “Absolutely. I’m going to be using that when I go back to the bars and try to find girls.” Will that work? “I hope so! I’ve never had the opportunity before unless I lied, and some girls are good at reading a lie.”
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18 Jan 2014“I’m really pumped about it,” he said, with a straighter face. “It’s definitely one of the things you want growing up, you want to win slams, represent your country in Davis Cup, win Olympics and be your country’s No 1 player.”
Inglot could be an outside shot for Davis Cup selection when the team to face the USA is announced on Tuesday, though he admits that Fleming is likely to be ahead of him in the queue. “It’s not just about playing well, but playing well together,” he said. “Andy
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