By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Belgium will host Great Britain in the Davis Cup final on red clay at the 13,000-seat Flanders Expo in Ghent.
Photo credit: Davis Cup
The Davis Cup final will be a dirt duel.
Belgium will host Great Britain in the Davis Cup final on indoor red clay at the Flanders Expo in Ghent, November 27-29th, the ITF announced today.
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A pair of unlikely finalists are playing for history.
Contesting its first Davis Cup final in 111 years, Belgium is playing for its first Davis Cup championship.
Legends Fred Perry and Bunny Austin were the last British players to leave their fingerprints on the Davis Cup when they won it 79 years ago. Playing its first final in 37 years, Team GB may well rely on the Murray brothers to recapture the Cup.
Clay is a favorite surface for Belgian No. 1 David Goffin, who is 11-7 on dirt this season. It is Belgian No. 2 Steve Darcis' best Davis Cup surface. Darcis, who defeated Argentina's Federico Delbonis on Sunday to clinch the nation's historic return to the final, is 10-1 lifetime in Davis Cup matches contested on clay.
France hosted the 2014 Davis Cup final on red clay in an effort to exploit the fact both Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka played the ATP World Tour Finals on hard court prior to the final and had little time to adjust to the slower surface. Wawrinka and Federer were not fazed by the surface switch, leading Switzerland to victory and its first Davis Cup championship last November.
Clay is the least favorite surface for British No. 1 Andy Murray, who accounted for all three points in Great Britain's 3-2 semifinal conquest of Australia on the blue hard-court in his native Glasgow. Solidifying his status as one of game's fiercest Davis Cup competitors, Murray raised his DC singles record to 25-2. His last loss came on the red clay of Naples when a sharp Fabio Fognini carved up the Scot in straight sets in the 2014 quarterfinals.
Since that loss, Murray has surged to eight straight Davis Cup wins, including partnering brother Jamie in doubles victories over Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Groth in Glasgow and over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Nicolas Mahut on the grass of Queen's Club.
The world No. 3 will likely have to produce all three points again if Britain is to reclaim the Cup for the first time since 1936.
Selecting a slow dirt track, Belgium is putting Murray on his least comfortable surface. It's also the toughest surface for potential British No. 2 singles players, including 101st-ranked Kyle Edmund, No. 142 James Ward, No. 196 Liam Broady and Dan Evans, a serve-and-volleyer who took a set off Bernard Tomic in a semifinal loss.
It's an effort to use the surface as a weapon to wear down the three-time Roland Garros semifinalist.
The host is hoping to engage Murray, who underwent back surgery a couple of years ago, into physically grinding rallies to wear him down, particularly if he plays three matches in three days as he has in the last two ties.
Murray, prone to tugging at physical and stress-induced aches and pains during matches, will have the added challenge of a quick turnaround time transitioning from the hard court of the ATP World Tour Finals in London—assuming he plays the November 15-22nd season-ending event—to the slower red clay of Ghent.
Murray welcomed the challenge on Twitter.
Murray has played the most dynamic clay-court tennis of his career this year. He's won 15 of 16 clay-court matches, including sweeping Rafael Nadal in the Madrid final the week after he edged Philipp Kohlschreiber to capture his first career clay-court title in Munich. Murray pushed world No. 1 Novak Djokovic to five sets in the French Open semifinals in June.
An all-surface player, Goffin has reached finals on clay and grass this season. He beat Dominic Thiem to win the 2014 Kitzbuhel title on clay and lost to Thiem in the Gstaad final on dirt in July.
Goffin is riding a seven-match Davis Cup winning streak and owns a 4-1 clay-court record in Davis Cup play. However, he's 1-20 lifetime vs. Top 10 players, including an 0-7 mark vs. the Top 10 this season.
Belgian fans provided a raucous sound track to the team's comeback from a 1-2 deficit to beat Argentina last weekend. They could play a vocal role in November.
"Ghent will fully support the Davis Cup by BNP Paribas Final," Tennis Vlaanderen President Dirk de Maeseneer told Davis Cup.com. "As the third biggest city in Belgium, it has a lot of experience in hosting top international events, such as the Tour of Flanders, the arrival of the Tour de France in 2007 and the Gymnastics World Championships in 2001 and 2013.”
The 13,000-seat Flanders Expo is the second-largest arena in Belgium and a popular venue for concerts. AC/DC, Metallica, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Prince, Britney Spears and U2 are among the artists who've played the hall.
The site should be rocking in November.