Edmund taught tough lesson in Belgian bear pit
KYLE EDMUND sat with a towel over his head for what seemed a very long time. Leon Smith, the Great Britain coach, tried to coax him out from under the material. Still he hid.
The noise inside the Flanders Expo arena would have permeated, though — a sound he has never experienced on a tennis court, and may never experience again. Here was Davis Cup tennis in the raw. We sneer at the competition in this country, belittle its worthiness and significance. To Edmund, it will have felt as insignificant as a bear pit does to the bears.
Edmund is a Davis Cup rookie, the final being his first experience of it, and no player in that position has ever finished on the winning side. Yet, briefly, he stood on the brink of a remarkable feat. He was two sets and one game up on David Goffin, the Belgian No 1, a reversal of expectation that left the locals close to speechless. And motionless.
The controller of the giant screens insisted on framing them with his ‘Dance- cam’. The plan was to capture happy tennis fans, capering in time to the beat, but all he could locate were rows of solemn Belgian faces. No one felt like dancing. No one smiled. Belgium wasn’t waving, but drowning.
The Davis Cup format is very simple. The top seeds beat inferior opposition on day one, setting up their head-to-head pairings as the final- day climax. For Goffin, world No 16, to fall to Edmund, ranked 100, had taken all rhythm and reason from the occasion. Worse, Goffin was playing execrably. He lost the first set 6-3, the second 6-1. Edmund’s forehand was smearing him all over the court.
Two Belgian journalists were deep in conversation. Amid the Flemish — and apologies here, as no doubt our dialects sound peculiar to them, too — the odd word of English could be made out. ‘Hurdygurdyhurdygurdyhurdygurdy — mental breakdown — hurdygurdyhurdygurdyhurdygurdy — stress.’
It appeared the pressure of a partisan home crowd and an inferior opponent had got to their man. The odd confident soul in Union Jack flag-wear was contemplating bringing that Eurostar return ticket forward to Saturday night. If Edmund won, the family Murray would surely do the rest.
Yet there is a reason those who have long followed the misfortunes of Great Britain’s tennis team have what is known as a ‘Didsbury’ rule. In 1994, at the Northern Club, south of Manchester, Jeremy Bates was leading 6-0, 6-3 and coasting impressively through the third set against a Romanian 17-year- old, Razvan Sabau. The statistically minded were searching for the fastest Davis Cup victory by a British player. You can guess the rest.
A mystifying series of reverses resulted in a 7-6 tiebreak defeat in the third, before Sabau finished it off 6- 2, 6- 2. Since when, a whispered ‘Didsbury’ has been the dire warning whenever confidence infests the conversation. Even so: 6-3, 6-1 and a sublime drop shot at the net to hold serve in the third. Not to mention all that hurdygurdymentalbreakdown afflicting his opponent. Maybe we are getting quite good at this, after all.
And then, of course, it all went a bit Didsbury. There is a reason why Goffin is ranked 16 and Edmund 100. It is because a top-20 player can work out his opponent’s strengths and find a way to circumvent them; it is because the inferior player does not have the experience or the arsenal to change strategy when that happens.
Gradually, the action began to take a more predictable course. The tension, the pressure, started to crowd in on Edmund, too. Before the game, he had compared it to a match he had played on an outside court of the French Open against a local.
It really is nothing like that. It is nothing like anything he will have been through in tennis. It is the first tee at the Ryder Cup, a penalty kick at the away end. It is boisterous, partisan, a little nuts. There are people with tambourines and drums, dressed as ladybirds. There is a brass section and a raucous crowd from Stirling University. There are people here who would be subject to an exclusion order if they ever came within two miles of the All England Club.
Later in the day, Andy Murray would be warned twice over ‘audible obscenities’ — although how the umpire could hear himself think, let alone any of the players curse, is unclear. The supporters are respectful of the tennis — mostly, although there was the odd ejection — but it takes a particular personality to thrive in this environment and maybe Edmund hasn’t got that. Murray has.
Having asked the crowd to be quieter during play, he was taunted with shushing noises on his serve. Saving set point in the third, he appeared to give the locals a little bit back. He once said he would thrive in a football-crowd environment. He is certainly unafraid of one. There is no shame in Edmund losing to Goffin, particularly not having taken him the distance, but his decline was sharp and startling. It was as if he suddenly realised what was at stake, what he was about to do and the effect it could have on his team. Another strength separating the elite from the field is character. They don’t mind looking down from the top of the leaderboard, and they can tough out the win.
Always be closing could be a lesson from tennis, too; but Edmund wasn’t a closer. With Goffin in the ascendancy, he had no answer. He won one of the last 15 games of the match. When he finally removed his towel, Edmund hurried from the court with not so much as a wave to either of the supporting armies — Barmy or Belgian.
IT was left to Murray to restore British optimism, as most knew he would. Ruben Bemelmans was no fool, but nor was he about to spring a shock. Murray won in straight sets, the last a bit tasty at 7-5, but a little local difficulty was to be expected, considering Belgium’s home advantage and the unfamiliar surface. Murray says he has played one indoor tournament on clay in his entire career.
So it’s down to him, again, in all likelihood: with his brother Jamie in the doubles today, and then first up against Goffin tomorrow. Win both of those matches and Great Britain will take home a Davis Cup for the first time since 1936.
One slip, though, and it will all be on the last. A second outing for Edmund? It is hard to see how Smith could risk him. A towel only affords so much protection from the reality of Davis Cup tennis and by tomorrow it is going to be of no use at all.
It’s the Ryder Cup first tee. It’s a penalty at the away end