On the final day of Andy Murray’s busiest and most consistent season his strength, skill and determination coalesced to deliver the Davis Cup to Great Britain after a longueur of 79 years. He took nearly three hours to beat Belgium’s best player, David Goffin, to get there, although it was not as straightforward as the 6-3, 7-5, 6-3 scoreline might suggest. He could not care a jot. He had done his duty, as everyone knew he would.
Kyle Edmund had played a tangential role on debut, perhaps sowing doubt in Goffin’s mind by taking the first two sets in the first rubber of the tie on Friday. Murray dismissed Ruben Bemelmens, then his brother, Jamie, overcame the jitters to partner him to victory in the doubles – and, as was almost preordained, it all came down to Andy. It always does. As long as he plays, it always will.
He is only the third player since John McEnroe in 1982 and Mats Wilander the following year to win eight Davis Cup singles in a calendar year. He is also only the fourth player to win 11 rubbers, having taken three doubles points with Jamie, since the world group began in 1981.
The sport and the event have changed dramatically since Fred Perry and Bunny Austin combined to subdue a talented Australian team in the 1936 final at decorous Wimbledon. This was faster, louder, madder.
The mood, affably belligerent on the first two days, was ramped up from the first game, as whistling hecklers stole their split-second of assumed glory by twice interrupting Murray’s ball toss. It did not seem to bother the focused Scot.
Fans who had paid handsomely for their seats – especially those in serried ranks in the colours of their team lined up on either side of the court – showed a curious reluctance to sit in them. They were on their feet between nearly every point, screaming with such manic intensity it was impossible to make out a word of their exhortations.
The Britons oompahed their horns and banged their drums; the Belgians – with an outsize cardboard cut-out of their hero floating above their seats – swayed as they waved their big red rubber fingers, like some reincarnation of Kenny Everett. It was two-all after 20 minutes. Both sides had plenty to cheer about.
As vocal as anyone among the 13,000 present was Dan Evans leading the support from the British bench – and he is not even in the squad. But Leon Smith, the captain, was determined to have him here, his stormy petrel capable of all sorts of heroics in the past, a good-luck charm now and a loud one.
However, there is an obvious delineation to be made between passion and boorishness; some of the cynically timed whistling was absurdly childish – and rightly booed by the overwhelming majority.
Amid all the mayhem in the crowd Goffin had to save an early break point but settled into a solid rhythm to stay with Murray. However, it became steadily clear that the determined Belgian was finding it tough to cope in the longer exchanges, opting for the high-risk of going for the lines, ball in hand and off the ground.
Murray would not budge from his disciplined attrition, waiting for his moment rather than forcing it – and it came on the half-hour, the Scot unfurling an unreachable backhand for 4-2. After soaking up some stiff resistance, he served out with a forehand in the advantage corner.
The second set followed a similar pattern until Murray hunted down a lob to pass delicately for break point in the third game. Would this open another door to victory? Goffin refused to fold, though, and brought the red army to their feet again when he held through two deuce points, manoeuvring Murray wide enough to render his forehand response uncontrollable.
At one crucial point in the game Murray was incandescently upset with Jamie for standing in his sight line at one end of the court but the tiff subsided when the elder Murray moved as he was told. There was a lot of emotion out there.
Murray’s serve was his bedrock, with 70% success on first and second efforts in the first hour, and Goffin did not have the power or precision to reply in kind. He had suffered the same fate in their previous two meetings, most recently on the hard court of Bercy in Paris and, whatever his assertions about his clay-court expertise being the leveller, he could not make it pay.
This was an unusually fast, shale-based surface, anyway, as suited to Murray’s flat groundstrokes as to Goffin’s slower, teasing spin. He will have recognised, also, that Murray has grown in confidence on clay since beating the all-time master Rafael Nadal to win the Madrid title during the summer. Murray held to love in the sixth game; Goffin’s boyish head dropped ever so slightly. But he was hanging in there.
Some of Belgium’s sporting royalty were present, most prominently the former world No1 Kim Clijsters. The roar that greeted Goffin’s hold for 4-3 was bigger than anything he can have experienced on tour. Ahead in the serving cycle, he was still in the fight but he could not afford even the slightest dip in his level.
Murray hit his fifth, sixth and seventh aces to hold to love in the eighth game and the pressure clearly was mounting on Goffin, who found one of his own at the next time of asking as Murray strove vainly for a breakthrough.
After an hour and 45 minutes, Murray had to hold to stay in the set – which had already gone 10 minutes longer than the first – and, at 40-30, he was grateful for a final netted forehand by his desperate opponent.
Goffin, advancing at every half-chance, botched a drop-shot en route to deuce in the 11th game and trembled in the stroke to put a closing forehand low into the net again, giving Murray the chance to serve for a two-set lead. He produced a wondrous forehand crosscourt winner, raising his fist in celebration to those parts of the crowd still on their feet. Not many were Belgian.
The atmosphere which had raged for two hours briefly settled into resignation in large swaths of the hall, but not for long.
Only once in his career had Murray lost a match from two sets up, against David Nalbandian long ago. He was not about to do so again – although, when Goffin secured his first break of the match, in the second game of the third set, British hearts raced a little faster. Goffin could not hold but, after two hours and 40 minutes, with the finish line tantalisingly close, Murray had to save break point to level at three-all.
He gritted his teeth, stared down the barrel at Goffin and stuck a rose in it, breaking him to love. He held through deuce for 5-3. He scrambled two break points. The crowd leaned forward. He lobbed the winner.
He fell to the clay. He cried, he rolled around, he hugged, he grinned idiotically, euphorically – and cried once more. Thanks again, Andy.
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