Murray: team spirit and fans won it

Murray's three-set victory over John Isner gave Britain an unassailable 3-1 lead in the tie though USA pulled a point back when James Ward retired injured in the dead rubber against Donald Young.

"The effort and attitude of everyone was excellent. We deserved the win because of that," said Murray who received an astonishing reception then winning ovation from 7700 spectators in the Emirates Area.

"Everyone fought extremely hard especially when we were behind in the matches. Nobody gave up, everyone played every point very hard and I thought we deserved to win. It's a big win."

The victory now takes GB into a quarter-final against France on July 17-19 with a decision to be made over what surface it is played on and where. If the choice is grass, then the venue is highly unlikely to be in Scotland.

Asked what the triumph meant to him, Murray, who has now risen to world No.4, said: "For me, it's not necessarily a personal thing. This the one week during the year when it isn't about yourself, it's about the whole team and I think it means a lot to everyone , all the staff and players who put in a tremendous amount of effort and deserved to get that result."

He said the crowd made a "big difference" to the outcome. He insisted it had spurred on the double steam of his brother, Jamie, and Dom Inglot and the astonishing singles victory of James Ward against Isner on Friday,

"I'm sure that James, Jamie and Don would tell you that it helps. They weren't necessarily the favourites going into the match, so having the crowd with you makes a big difference," he said.

"It's the same in every single sport. For some reason in tennis people think that playing in front of a home crowd is crippling in a way and makes people incredibly nervous. It can make you nervous, but if you look at the results of players playing in the UK and you look at the Olympics and the performance of all of the Olympians in London, I think it was our best Olympics ever and there's a reason for that. The crowd makes a big difference."

He said the team had a "synergy", adding: "That builds the emotion and the togetherness within the team. It gives you that extra incentive to perform and go out there to fight for every point. I was very emotional all weekend. I know the team and the staff very well. I was proud of them as team-mates and as friends, and also my brother, the way they performed and fought in this arena under so much pressure.

"I thought they all did incredibly well and I was proud to be part of their team."

Jim Courier, the USA captain, believes Great Britain could even win the competition.

"When you have a great player and champion like Andy against most teams they are up 2-0 going in. They should feel like that," he said.

"And the way their doubles team were playing was impressive. Bob and Mike [Bryan] played unbelievably well yesterday and they got pushed to the wire. We've seen Boris Becker take a German team to a championship when he was the best singles player by a pretty wide margin. When you have Andy Murray you have a chance. It's a pretty good luxury."

Murray, though, was more cautious. "To win the event is an extremely difficult thing to do. Even someone like Federer, such a great player, it's taken him to have a top four player in the world as a partner to help him to do that," he said of the winning combination between the seven-time Wimbledon champion and Stan Wawrinka.

Murray said of the Great Britain side: "We're playing right at the limits of our level right now. Hopefully we can keep doing that until the end of the year."