Davis Cup tennis final will go ahead in Belgium

Belgian capital Brussels, 35 miles away, remains on a high state of alert amid the threat of Paris-style attacks.

They now travel to Belgium for the November 27-29 final in Ghent after what has been a remarkable turnaround for a team that have risen from the verge of relegation to Europe/Africa Group III in 2010.

The International Tennis Federation (ITF), meanwhile, confirmed on Monday that while they continued to closely monitor the situation, the final was scheduled to go ahead as planned.

‘I know a lot of fans were staying there and planning on travelling through there.

“Here in Gent everything seems fine, it’s very quiet and it’s a really nice city”, he said. “I wanted to play on the biggest courts in front of lots of people … the Davis Cup has given me the chance to do that this year”. I hope as many fans can travel over as possible.

That in turn persuaded captain Leon Smith against making on early call on whether Kyle Edmund or James Ward would be his second singles player alongside Andy Murray.

“I’ll definitely have to tell them before Thursday”, said the coach, smiling. “It’s always been important for us to be an exemplary team and that’s what we are going to do this weekend”.

“He desperately plays for the team, the badge and the country rather than just himself, so I think to get through to the final is just wonderful”.

One was against Belgium in Glasgow in 2012, when Andy Murray did not play, while the other came previous year on clay in Italy.

Whoever Belgium play in the doubles rubber, with Steve Darcis and Ruben Bemelmans the favourites, it is tough to make a case for the hosts winning it.

“Playing indoors tends to make things a little bit quicker, which helps obviously”, he said. Although both teams have been practising on the specially constructed indoor clay court, there is still much work to be done before the 13,000 fans – including some 1,300 from Britain – arrive for the first day’s play on Friday. But this is a bit different. We may not get the outcome we want, but it won’t be through lack of trying or lack of care from anyone in the team. Take the semis against Australia after a gruelling US Open Series, in a tie that sandwiched a five-set marathon doubles win between two singles wins. I still don’t know how Murray won that match, but that was the pivotal point of the season for this team.

“We have come a long way but the simple fact is that if Andy had played a few of those matches, particularly at the end, we wouldn’t have been in that position”. “The last five years has been a progression from a pretty low place in world tennis to playing for the biggest team competition”.

‘We only had yesterday on court with a good day of practice, ‘ he said.

This was the first time in the competition’s history that all four of the nominated singles players – Italy’s Andrea Gaudenzi and Davide Sanguinetti and Sweden’s Magnus Norman and Magnus Gustafsson – were ranked outside the top 30.