Murray brothers give Britain 2-1 lead in final
Doubles win keeps visitors on track for first Davis Cup title since 1936
Andy and Jamie Murray took Britain to the cusp of Davis Cup glory yesterday, defeating David Goffin and Steve Darcis of Belgium 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in a crucial doubles match to grab a 2-1 lead with just the reverse singles to follow.
Andy Murray could get the job done when he takes on Goffin in the first of those rubbers today, giving Britain their first Davis Cup win since 1936 and 10th overall.
Both No.1s won their opening matches on Friday and the win for the Murray brothers yesterday means that Andy Murray is now 10-0 in Davis Cup play this year.
The first set, in front of a noisy 13,000 capacity crowd at the Flanders Expo, was tight as a drum with the first break point only coming after 31 minutes when it was 5-4 to Belgium.
Andy Murray saved that with a big first serve and in the next game a missed smash from Darcis gave the British pair their first set point which they took after Andy Murray got the better of Darcis at the net.
But it was Jamie Murray who faltered in the third game of the second set. Three missed volleys and a double fault opened the door wide for the Belgians and they walked through it on their third set point.
The older of the Murray boys was clearly the target for the Belgians and was struggling. He dropped serve again in the third game of the third set as the home pair started to grow in confidence.
But Darcis chose that moment to fling in a poor service game that allowed the British to level at 2-2.
Two games later it was Goffin’s turn to crumble, the British duo dominating at the net to take three straight points from 30-15 down.
Jamie Murray dropped serve for the third time in the following game, but Darcis followed suit to make it an astonishing five breaks in six games.
Andy Murray finally brought some normalcy back to proceedings by holding serve to put Britain two sets to one up.
The British pair broke Darcis again in the third game of the fourth set and then somehow staved off seven break points on the Jamie Murray serve from 0-40 down to take a 3-1 lead.
From there on in it was a case of holding on to serve and they managed that with little difficulty, taking the Darcis serve one more time along the way.
On Friday, Goffin beat Kyle Edmund 3-6, 1-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-0 for the home team before world No.2 Murray helped Britain level by beating Ruben Bemelmans 6-3, 6-2, 7-5.