Cam Norrie's reason for pulling out of Davis Cup squad as Team GB left hamstrung

Cameron Norrie will not play in Great Britain's upcoming Davis Cup match in order to recover from the illness that plagued his Australian Open campaign. Earlier this week, it was confirmed that Norrie had dropped out of the squad to face Japan after initially being selected by captain Leon Smith. He was replaced by Jan Choinski, who sits 191st in the ATP rankings. Jack Draper has also withdrawn from the group due to an injury, leaving Great Britain without any players ranked inside the world's top 75. Opening up on Norrie's decision to pull out, Smith revealed that he was looking to train and get back to full fitness after struggling with the flu in Melbourne. "It's a shame that Cam's not here," said Smith. "Originally he was in the team and really wanted to come here. He obviously spoke to me in Australia, the back end of it, he'd been sick with flu. That was pretty well documented. "He wasn't feeling great and decided that he wanted to get back, train again, recover his full fitness and get prepared for the run of events that take place after this. It's just part of the schedule. "We'd have loved to have him but now we've got Jacob [Fearnley], Billy [Harris] and Jan [Choinski]. That's our singles. I think it's a great opportunity for them. "I've seen it before in the past, the times where we haven't had our top players there, and it's time for others to take that opportunity to win or lose and learn from it and give their best effort." Jacob Fearnley will be the star attraction for Great Britain, having recently beaten Nick Kyrgios on his way to the third round of the Australian Open. "It's been really, really impressive what Jacob's been doing since he turned pro last June," added Smith. "He got his opportunities on the grass with wildcards and took them, which allowed his ranking to keep going. "You see what he was able to do at the Australian Open. He coped with the Kyrgios match extremely well. There was a brilliant atmosphere, brilliant to come through a match like that. "Equally, when he played [Arthur] Cazeaux on Court Six, it was an amazing atmosphere, a lot of French support, against a really good player and he came through that. "I think also if you look at the match against Zverev he equipped himself extremely well. That's all positive signs."