NEXT weekend's Davis Cup first-round encounter between Great Britain and Canada could never be just another tie for Louis Cayer. The 64-year-old Quebecois, after all, spent 12 years contributing to the country of his birth's efforts in this competition, as first coach then captain. Martin Laurendeau, the current Canada captain, used to be his second in command, while veteran doubles expert Daniel Nestor, all of 44 now, was once his star pupil.

But any suggestion that Cayer has divided loyalties going into the tie would be best made out of his earshot. The renowned technical coach, who has a British wife and a UK-born five-year-old son, feels fully British now, even if he doesn't quite have all the documentation to prove it.

He is also a key part of the British tennis family, having ascended to the role of doubles leader and head of high performance coaching at the LTA in the 10 years since Judy Murray first persuaded him to lend a hand to her son Jamie. Indeed, as he told the Sunday Herald only half-jokingly, the tie had jogged his memory about the necessity to push on with ensuring he gains full citizenship as soon as possible.

"I arrived in March 2007 so that is 10 years now that I have been in the UK," said Cayer. "I have no real emotional attachment anymore to Canada. I am truly a Brit.

"All the players in the Davis Cup team who I have worked with - the likes of Jamie, Colin Fleming, Jamie Marray and Ross Hutchins - have played against Daniel Nestor so often that I am used to coaching against him now. Jamie beat him in the Australian Open final last year, and again in the final of the Toronto Masters. This won't be any different."

Co-incidentally, Michael Downey, the departing LTA chief executive, is another man going back, having recently pledged to return to his former post in the same role at Tennis Canada.

"I know the Davis Cup captain very well, because I coached him and then he was assistant for many years, and it will be nice to go back, although I would prefer it to be in the final, not the first round," said Cayer. "In fact I thought it would have happened before now. But while I can't say that it will be exactly the same as playing against any other nation, it won't be far off. I really cannot say I would be happy whatever happens. I am really over that."

When it comes to Davis Cup duty, second guessing the respective team lines can be a fraught business. If Andy Murray sent shockwaves when he made the told captain Leon Smith to name a four-man team without him - it includes in-form singles players Kyle Edmund and Dan Evans, with doubles duo Jamie Murray and Dom Inglot - that seemed like a wise move when Milos Raonic, the top five player in Canada's ranks, confirmed he too was taking himself out of the firing line with an adductor problem.

It all leaves Canada's singles hopes resting on the slender shoulders of the versatile Vasek Pospisil, a 26-year-old who has been as high as No 25 in singles and No 4 in doubles. Raonic's replacement, Peter Polansky, is actually ranked a few spots higher in singles right now at 132. Nestor is the grizzled doubles expert with the wild card in the pack the prodigious, flamboyant Denis Shapovalov, who is forecast for a big future but is still just 17.

While Cayer accepts it would be a blow if the world No 1 resists the temptation to stage an 11th hour arrival for a tie to be played on an indoor hard court at The Arena in Ottawa, he also knows Britain are capable of winning the tie without him. Murray, as proven in Serbia last year, tends to assist those around him even when he doesn't play in Davis Cup ties.

"If you have Andy there, just when he steps on the court, he puts pressure on the opponents and gives confidence to the team," said Cayer. "He gives hints and tips, and sees the opponents from the players' point of view while we see them from the coaches' point of view. He will go and play, take a shower, then come back and cheer on the other players. He is a real team player, a real leader. Of course we can win without him - now we have players who have benefited from it, they have learned a lot from his work ethic, and grown a lot to become established top 50 players - but the team with him is a different team. Whatever happens, Andy will be with us by e-mail and call and doing everything he can to help us get over the line."

Saturday's doubles rubber promises to be crucial, and not least because Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares, the best doubles pairing in world tennis during 2016, are still licking their wounds after a 6-3, 7-6 (5) opening-round defeat to US pairing Sam Querrey and Donald Young whilst defending champions at Melbourne Park.

"Jamie was ready, because he had made the final in Sydney the week before," says Cayer. "He went in there confident and ready to do well but he and Bruno came up against two players who had played a couple of games already in singles and were ready to play. They were underdogs who went for their shots.

"Querrey is a good player in singles and in doubles he doesn't have to move so much. Young played well too, and while normally Jamie and Bruno pull these matches out but what can you say, the other team played better on the day. If they played this match 10 times I think Jamie and Bruno would win maybe seven or eight times but that was just the way it goes. It was a bad day, not a bad playing day, but a bad result day. It was very disappointing but it is not like they had to beat themselves up and be depressed for three days."

Jamie and Dom Inglot haven't played together since losing a heartbreaker to the Bryan brothers in Glasgow in early 2015 but Cayer doesn't feel it should take too long to get the understanding back. One of his first jobs when arriving in the LTA system was setting down a basic set of rules and codes known as the 'British doubles system'.

"They [Jamie and Dom Inglot] haven't played since then but the good thin is that when I came to Britain I invented something called the 'British doubles system' because I didn't want to call it MY system," said Cayer. "It means that any Brit can play with any Brit, using the same tactical system. They will be able to adapt to it straightaway."