Davis Cup final: Andy Murray confident for crucial doubles

The 1-1 score at the end of Day 1 now increases the importance of Saturday’s doubles rubber, which will see Andy and Jamie Murray take on Kimmer Coppejans and Steve Darcis, with the victor earning the chance to secure the Davis Cup title in the first of Sunday’s reverse singles rubbers.

Top players Andy Murray and David Goffin both won their opening singles for the United Kingdom and Belgium in the Davis Cup final in Ghent on Friday, but in contrasting styles.

In the end, it could even boil down to the very last rubber and, although captain Leon Smith was keeping his cards close to his chest last night, that is likely to be the old campaigner James Ward, as opposed to debutant Kyle Edmund, against Darcis, who yesterday denied reports of cortisone injections in his injured arm. I know how good a player Goffin is.

In the Belgians, they would take on No16 David Goffin and No84 ranked Steve Darcis, who had only ever played together four times, and three of those were in Challengers.

This year, aside from Davis Cup duties, the elder Murray reached the finals of Wimbledon and the US Open with partner John Peers, plus 500s in Basel, Vienna, Barcelona and Rotterdam.

But it was Jamie Murray that faltered in the third game of the second set.

While he would not quite have won the trophy single-handed, there can have been few years in the competition’s 115-year history where one player has been so crucial to the winning team.

“I was very anxious”, he said. In the majority of them, he struggled to get Jamie Murray’s left-handed serve back in play. If they could win just one more set, that score of 2-1 would also represent the overall score in the final itself.

“Physically I’m feeling good”. But it is Andy, overall, who has provided most of the horsepower driving Great Britain towards this rarely glimpsed prize.

Jamie was superb in doubles wins over France and Australia in the last two rounds but he could not find his touch or his timing. He was facing a man he had never played before, the world number 108, Rubén Bemelmans. For all their Grand Slam experience, neither has played in a Davis Cup final before and experienced the responsibility that comes with it.

That would all change in dramatic fashion however, with Great Britain holding their own before finally carving out their first break point of the entire match.

The brothers fought off seven break points in the key fourth game of the fourth set and cruised from that point as the Belgian spirit sagged.

However, the Belgians’ serve proved just as vulnerable and, after five breaks in six games, Andy served out the set. “Every point is. But I don’t think for either team, if you lose it, that the tie is over because I think both teams are capable of winning all of the points here”. Jamie raised his level at the flawless moment to retrieve the break straight away against Darcis and two games later it was Goffin in trouble.

“I believe if we lost the doubles, we could win two singles on Sunday”, he said.

It was more of the same in the second set from Murray as he ran Bemelmans ragged around the court and went on to take the set 6-2.