Why Davis Cup tennis is different

The Davis Cup is the only team tournament in elite men's tennis.

Nations compete with each other across three days per round. There are five matches in a tie - four singles and one doubles. But the departures from Wimbledon don't stop there.

There's no name calling

This is team tennis so the umpire says "advantage Great Britain" or "first set Australia" from the chair. That means officials will be secretly relieved they don't have to say "Kokkinakis" repeatedly.

There's a couch

GB captain Leon Smith with Dan Evans

The team captain gets to sit on a little sofa at the edge of the court, like it's the Graham Norton show without the drinks cabinet. We can't imagine this in regular men's tennis where coaches tend to sit up in a box looking glum.

The barmy army

There's a huge barmy army in Glasgow and they're not ladies with flasks and sandwiches. The #BacktheBrits clan have a designated area, a brass section and drums.

Our Murray-o-meter in action.

We also know this lot got to the stadium three hours before the first match on Friday to teach everyone the songs. That's according to Newsbeat's reliable source... Andy Murray.

"They were in the velodrome before 10 o'clock... singing and rehearsing all of the songs," he said. "To have that support behind you makes a huge difference."

Rehearsal time for the Barmy Army.

The first timers

It's Lisa and Joanne's first-time time at the tennis.

Loads of the fans here are new to tennis, like Lisa and Joanne who told Newsbeat: "This is the highlight of our year."

"It's the first time I've seen Andy Murray live so I'm very very excited," Joanne adds.

It's thistly_steve's first time watching Murray.

Wimbledon is pretty difficult to get into: the famous queues, the expensive tickets and a complicated balloting system which dates back to 1924. Going to Davis Cup tennis is much more like bagging tickets to see a band.

People really commit on outfits

There are union jack cowboy hats, Murray masks and neon-faced Aussies everywhere. There are men in kilts. And some of them are so devoted to the Murray brothers they are actually called Jamie and Murray.

Murray and Jamie on the left. No really.

Andy Murray is the biggest fan of all

That's Andy Murray at the front there

Murray spent the majority of Friday's post-match press conference trailing off mid-sentence because he was trying to watch his teammate Dan Evans on a nearby TV screen.

Andy Murray can't concentrate during his press conference.

That is why the Davis Cup is so special and in tennis terms only the Olympics comes close. It's a lonely life out on the world tour and this being the only team event means we didn't mind Andy getting distracted by his mates at all.

They hoover the courts

Ok so this isn't strictly a Davis Cup thing but it's a hard court thing. We want to know just what it is going up those Henry nozzles. Tennis ball fluff?

Would opening up the hoover bag reveal neon yellow fluff?

Or perhaps Australian dreams? Not the latter because one thing that is very much the same as it ever was is Aussie sporting confidence. Even with bad boy Nick Kyrgios left out of the squad, these fans told Newsbeat they think this weekend's tennis is "history in the making".

"It's Lleyton [Hewitt's] last ever year, we're gonna take it out."

Australian fan Patrick talks to Newsbeat.

Live Davis Cup tennis begins at 1300 BST on BBC One.