Happy Women's Day!

I have unintentionally developed a feminist theme to this blog in recent posts and find myself compelled to continue the thread for at least one more item. Conveniently, it is also International Women's Day today. How fitting.

The British Davis Cup team lost to Lithuania at the weekend, leaving them teetering on the brink of relegation into the Europe/Africa Zone Three a.k.a tennis obscurity. It was a devastating loss for the British men, minus Andy Murray, as Dan Evans succumbed in five sets to Laurynas Grigelis in the fifth and final rubber with the tie hanging in the balance at 2-2. At 521 in the world, Grigelis is ranked 269 places below Evans. I needn't go on.

Unsurprisingly, the media swooped down on this result like vultures on a rotting carcas. The Metro kindly decided to spread the British Davis Cup team's humiliation across it's third page.

"We only have bad news today," wrote Ross McGuiness in explanation of the newspaper's diversion away from oddly shaped vegetables and animals doing unusual things on page three. "And it is this - Britain is rubbish at tennis."

"If there was any doubt about our credibility on the tennis court, it was blown away yesterday by the mighty sports nation that is... Lithuania."

This is the point at which I must don my Germaine Greer hat and make a small protest on behalf of the girls. Our men, minus Andy Murray, may be rubbish at tennis, but our British women certainly are not.

We currently have two women inside the world's top 100 - Elena Blatacha and Katie O'Brien - and a third, Anne Keothavong, just outside, but only because a serious knee injury forced her to take time out the sport in the same year that she achieved a career high ranking of 48. Baltacha and O'Brien are both enjoying the best period of their careers at the moment and would no doubt contest the statement that "Britain is rubbish at tennis".

Heather Watson and Laura Robson might also have something to say about that. And with good reason. Both junior Grand Slam champions, 17-year-old Watson recently beat two-times Grand Slam semi-finalist and former world number seven Nicole Vaidisova, while 16-year-old Laura Robson beat a top 30 player for the first time in her career this year while playing Hopman Cup with Andy Murray. It's hardly fair to lump the women in with the men and heap the same scorn on them.

Incidently, as far as reaction to the Davis Cup loss goes, Greg Rusedski tweeted yesterday: "Cannot believe we have lost to lithuania in davis cup. Unbelievable." Anne Keothavong lent her support to captain John Lloyd via Twitter, saying she still thinks he's a "top bloke" and Lloyd's brother David had some interesting insights into what he believes has gone wrong in men's tennis. In an interview with the BBC, he called for LTA chief executive Roger Draper to resign. Draper issued a statement in which he announced that there would be a review of the performance and result.