Nations Cup: Britain win points.

In a quiet week for tennis, Great Britain pick up their first points not to be won by Andy Murray  and the USA continue their excruciatingly slow progress in pursuit of leaders Spain.

WHAT IS NATIONS CUP?
The Nations Cup is a special ranking system that assesses the performances of tennis players of both genders from a specific country - the nation with the greatest overall success over the course of the season will be declared the Nations Cup champion.
See the 'How it works' section below for a full explanation of the scoring system.

THE STANDINGS:
The week after a Grand Slam is never really all that action-packed and so it has proven once again.
Despite three tournaments taking place, in Budapest and Bastad for the women and in Newport for the men, there were relatively paltry points on offer even for the winner. The Davis Cup does not count towards the Nations Cup.
And as such there are few changes in the top 20 this week.
Richard Bloomfield's run to the semi-finals in Newport not only gave Great Britain their first points to be scored by someone other than Andy Murray, but also moved them back up one spot in 13th ahead of China.
Argentina also regained their place in the top 20, jumping four places to 17, courtesy of Gisela Dulko's runners-up spot in Bastad and Brian Dabul's semi-final run in Newport.
Aravane Rezai's second tournament win of the year, in Bastad, sees France close to within nine points of the fifth-placed Czech Republic, who themselves pick up 18 points after Lucie Safarova and Zuzana Ondrakova both reached semi-finals in Bastad and Budapest respectively.
Agnes Szavay's home win in Budapest mean Hungary make their debut in the tournament, albeit it not in the top 20 as they leap in at 31st.
The USA pick up another 25 points after Mardy Fish won the title at Newport although the Americans still trail Spain by nearly 500 points.

Nations Cup rankings (last week's position in brackets):
1. (1) Spain -- 1729
2. (2) USA -- 1248
3. (5) Serbia --606
4. (3) Russia --487
5. (9) Czech Republic --475
6. (4) France -- 464
7. (6) Belgium --444
8. (7) Italy --367
9. (8) Switzerland -- 357
10. (11) Australia --270
11. (10) Sweden --262
12. (11) Croatia --252
13. (14) Great Britain -- 210
14. (13) China -- 202
15. (14) Germany -- 159
16. (16) Israel -- 123
17. (21) Argentina -- 118
18. (17) Austria --108
19. (18) Latvia --104
20. (19) Denmark -- 103

HOW IT WORKS:
Players are awarded points for reaching the semi-finals or further of a tournament with the total number of points for each player then being added to their country's tally.
The number of points awarded are weighted not only to reflect how far a player progressed (with the tournament winner receiving more points than the runner-up and more again than the beaten semi-finalists) but also to reflect the difficulty of the tournament.
Thus a Grand Slam win will earn a player 200 points, a Masters series win 100 points and so on through the four tournament categories.
And just to add to the confusion, a country will also be awarded bonus points if they provide both finalists at a tournament.