Day one ended as we thought it might do: one rubber apiece – but Kyle Edmund came tantalisingly close to making history as the first final debutant in the 115-year history of the competition to win a live rubber, before suffering at the artful hands of David Goffin in five sets which one would hardly imagine belonged in the same match.
Rarely can a struggle lasting two hours and 47 minutes have swung so violently. It seemed after two sets the match was there for Edmund, ranked 100 in the world, to put in his pocket, leaving the 16th-ranked Belgian to explain to his distraught supporters how such a disaster had unfolded.
Instead, Goffin held firm to win 3-6, 1-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-0. So the combined scores of the loser of each set came to all of seven games. Unbelievable but true. Not quite so accurate was Edmund’s expression of humble regret afterwards.
“You’re playing for your country, you’re playing for your team-mates. You feel like you’ve let them down.”
The quiet 20-year-old from Beverley should be reassured he let nobody down; perhaps his body let his heart down but he can only benefit from the experience, taking on board how to deal with such crushing disappointment as well as knowing he can extend a fine player ranked 84 places above him on his favoured surface in front of 12,000 of his own fans in a wickedly hostile atmosphere.
Edmund added: “I’ll look back on it and I’ll say I did my best. But you’re right in the moment, you’re emotionally attached to it. You’re just disappointed you couldn’t do it for your team.”
Andy Murray knows all about the expectations of a nation, of course. He has been burdened with them for a decade and more, first satisfying the hunger pangs wrought by 77 years of waiting for someone to emulate Fred Perry, then leading this team here to smash more Perry history and win the Cup for Great Britain for the first time since 1936.
He got off to a wonderful start. It is fair to say Ruben Bemelmans, Belgium’s third best player and ranked at 108, was thrown to him as a first-day sacrifice, but the long-haired left-hander did not lie down, which resulted in an often enthralling scrap.
Repeatedly both players had the crowd edging forward in anticipation of something special as they strained at the limit of their skills. While the 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 scoreline in favour of the world No2 baldly tells a story of dominance, within the narrative there were enough quality exchanges to justify a grand slam final.
And there was no little passion in both matches – on and off the court. Although bonhomie was at a premium among fans bonded in an unspoken pact of defiance of external threats – one comedian tried a bomb hoax in the morning that delayed the tram servicing the venue for at least an hour – Murray red-lined at the point of all-out anger a couple of times. He was docked a point for audible dissent but thereafter kept his emotions fairly well in check.
Murray was booed with some gusto for perceived time-wasting after taking a tumble in the fourth game of the first set but, having allegedly manufactured the distraction, he proceeded to take advantage of it and broke.
Some of his racket work was sublime (as is so often the case), including a delicious lob that bamboozled Bemelmans at the start of the second set, followed by an angled backhand winner that skimmed the net for another break.
But Bemelmans showed his skills too, particularly near the net, where he won a staggering 24 of his 73 points. He was artful and resolute, also, in getting to deuce on Murray’s serve in the fourth game but the Scot would not crack.
A passing forehand at 15-40 in the fifth game was memorable as Murray eased into a two-set lead. Surely he would not fold like his inexperienced team-mate had earlier ... Bemelmans thought he might, especially after breaking for 4-2 in the third, and the crowd went even crazier than the pitch they had already achieved.
In the stands, there were a few inhospitable whistles at the moment of service – as there had been during Edmund’s match – but on court the intensity of concentration and commitment provided a shield to all that.
Murray recovered from his brief setback to break back in the seventh game and it was the turn of the travelling 1,000 – led by the Sterling University fans, as ever – to raise the roof.
Raising the roof, incidentally, is what the International Tennis Federation might have considered before a ball was struck as the girders holding the unbearably bright TV lights were a few centimetres the wrong side of legal height and a couple of Murray lobs almost bounced off them.
The heights he reached, though, were at ground level. In what has been probably his finest season – despite the lack of a slam to add to his cabinet – he is hitting the ball as hard and as crisply as at any time in his career. When he lined Bemelmans up after manoeuvring him into a position of the greatest vulnerability, the ball left his racket with blinding force.
The drop-in clay has to be among the fastest of its type in the game, with precious little grip or give, allowing the ball to fly through. Murray had his own inexplicable blip near the end, mind, double-faulting to hand Bemelmans set point, before holding, breaking and serving it out to wrap up victory after two hours and 24 minutes. But, to borrow from Tony Blair on John Prescott, Andy is Andy
He had his wide-mouthed lion roar on at the end, fair roasting this icebox of an arena with his full-blooded commitment. What would Great Britain do without him?
Earlier, Edmund also profited in his early sparring with Goffin from the friendly clay. The Belgian, playing on his favourite clay surface, had not dropped a set in four Davis Cup singles rubbers all year but found Edmund at turns brilliant, resolute then vulnerable before taking the opening rubber.
Once Goffin recovered from the early onslaught, he made Edmund pay for not cashing in.Towards the end Edmund’s young face wore the heavy weight of despair.
Where, he imagined, had all the power gone – and the control? In the first hour and a half, he had hit only six unforced errors. It took him only five minutes to double that tally and, from that point to the end, Goffin ruthlessly deconstructed his game.
At the end, Edmund was distraught. Yet he should take comfort from his wholeheartedness.
“It’s a whole new experience for me,” he said. There is every chance it will not be his last representing Great Britain.
No comments:
Post a Comment