ANDY Murray reckons Britain's hopes of winning their first Davis Cup title since 1936 will boil down to whether he or Belgium's top player David Goffin can handle the pressure best. With the International Tennis Federation (ITF) ruling World No 45 and Britain's Slovenian-born No 2 singles player Aljaz Bedene out of contention for next weekend's final when they postponed his appeal to be permitted to play for Britain until March, Davis Cup captain Leon Smith was left with debutant Kyle Edmund and World No 156 James Ward as his two most likely options for the second singles rubber. While Britain are not a one-man team, the World No 2 could play all three days and says he is happy to shoulder the burden.

"The pressure in that tie is on me and on Goffin," said Andy. "Whoever performs better out of the two of us will likely decide the outcome.

"The important thing is that everyone is aware that we win together, lose together," he added. "But I'm happy to take as much pressure as needed. I don't think if Kyle or James played against Goffin that people are expecting them to win. So the pressure is totally on Goffin in that match. Obviously the fifth rubber would be a bit different."

While the LTA were disappointed by the lack of outcome in a process which saw Bedene and his agent travel all the way out to Prague yet return empty handed, the end result is that the group which took the British team this far will get the chance to seal the deal. While both Edmund - winner of a Challenger event in Argentina as recently as Sunday - and the more experienced Ward have their pros and cons, the main thing is that they play their part for the team.

"James has the experience of playing in the big matches, which obviously counts for something," said Andy. "Kyle, having won the tournament on clay, and beaten two Argentinians over there, will be confident on the surface, which is important as well. Aljaz, in terms of his level, would have been the best level out of everyone, but he's never played a Davis Cup match before, like Kyle. And then Dan Evans, has done great this year to get his ranking back up and won some really good matches on the hard courts this week. But the downside for him is that he hasn't played on clay for a long time. So, there's pros and cons for everyone.

"But whoever gets picked as our number two player, their job is to go out there and try as hard as they can and give their best effort," he added. "And that, in my opinion, this year, in the tie against America, that's what James did. In the tie against Australia, Evo [Dan Evans] did that against [Bernard] Tomic. Although he didn’t win, he fought unbelievably hard, gave his best effort and no one was disappointed with the outcome of that match because he tried his best. That's all that everyone in the team wants from each other."

Murray faces Rafa Nadal in the ATP World Tour finals this afternoon, having won just five of the 21 previous meetings between the pair. He lost an epic in three sets at this venue back in 2010 and encounters a Spaniard finally returning to his best a year on from the illness and injury which saw him miss the last three months of the 2014 season. Their only previous meeting this year saw Murray crush him in the Madrid final on the Mallorcan's favoured surface of clay.

"Obviously I haven't played Rafa loads either the last couple years," said Murray. "Madrid was the last time we played. But he starting to play better again. We played a great match here a few years ago. And I think the court surface is good for him, as well. But I feel like I'm playing well enough to win." In the other singles group yesterday, Kei Nishikori recorded his first win with a 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 win against Tomas Berdych.