Britain’s Andy Murray, right, and his brother Jamie Murray discuss tactics during their doubles Davis Cup final tennis match against Belgium’s Steve Darcis and David Goffin at the Flanders Expo in Ghent, Belgium, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2015.
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The results: Belgium 1 tied with Britain 1 (David Goffin bt Kyle Edmund 3-6, 1-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-0; Ruben Bemelmans lost to Andy Murray 6-3, 6-2, 7-5). While Bemelmans is nominated for now against Kyle Edmund, a more likely match-up would surely be Steve Darcis, four times a victor in decisive fifth rubbers in Davis Cup play, against James Ward. “Picking Goffin didn’t surprise us and we knew it would be a dogfight but our boys played better throughout and produced an excellent performance yet again”.
With the best-of-five-match tie leveled at one apiece and Andy Murray in Great Britain’s team, Belgium needed to win to realistically keep alive its chances of claiming a maiden title – since the second-ranked Murray is expected to win the opening reverse singles Sunday.
However, captain Johan Van Herck could opt to bring in Goffin, who at world number 16 in singles is the highest-class player available. Serbia is the last country to win the Davis Cup title after being down 2-1 after the doubles rubber.
With the set under the belt, Andy Murray jumped wildly up and down, clenching his fist and pointing it at British supporters. Andy Murray responded with a huge serve for a hold, and the visitors piled on the pressure in the next game, taking advantage of a big miss from Darcis to grab the first break and win the set. He is a world class player with the crowd behind him it will be a hard match for me tomorrow.
“It’s unbelievable to go out there and play with Andy, as it has been in the previous ties”. Every Brit in the house seemed to let out a sigh of relief, having heard their collective breath since that first break in the third set. The British pair broke serve one more time and Andy Murray fired a service victor on their second match point to put it away.
But it was break back for Britain in the next game, with Jamie Murray hitting a crisp volley to the body of Goffin.
Edmund, ranked 100th in the world, 84 places lower than Goffin had his opponent on the ropes for the first two sets before running out of steam and allowing the Belgian to totally dominate the rest of the rubber. “When I move back, it’s a lot tougher for them to finish the point”. Wasting seven break points in the next took the fight out of the Belgians. “I had one bad game, the first one of the match”, said Nadal, a two-time finalist at the season-ending tournament. “I had a few chances in the beginning of the set, didn’t get it and then when the new balls came out he started going for his shots a bit more”.
Goffin’s sharp volley victor with Darcis serving at 5-4 leveled the match and the roars of delight shook the steel rafters hanging low over the illuminated claycourt.
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While Edmund said he struggled to concentrate in the rowdy venue, Murray said the atmosphere actually helped him – the extended cheering at each point gave him more time to recover between serves. We’re going to show tomorrow that we’re a strong group, we’re a strong team, and we’re going to try to solve this together.
