GHENT – The moment Andy Murray has pursued with such fanatical zeal finally arrived, unforgettably, on Sunday when an outrageous lob arced over Belgium’s David Goffin to seal Britain’s first Davis Cup tennis title for 79 years.
Fittingly for a player who has almost single-handedly guided his country to the title this year, the indefatigable Murray ended Goffin’s inspired resistance with a moment of sheer brilliance few could conjure to complete a 6-3 7-5 6-3 victory.
It gave Britain a winning 3-1 lead and started a party that hundreds of visiting fans decked out in union flags and Scottish saltires will keep going long into the night in medieval Ghent.
Murray, who put in a triple-shift over the weekend and looked exhausted at the end of a tense three-hour contest, collapsed on to the clay court before being swamped by his team mates, including brother Jamie, and captain Leon Smith.
Sportingly he clambered to his feet to console Goffin who had gallantly clung on to the hope of keeping alive Belgium’s chances of winning the title for the first time.
Murray then saluted the ‘Barmy Army’, who roared his every winner over a weekend that rubber-stamped his place in the chronicles of British sporting greatness, if any had doubted it after he ended a 77-year wait for a men’s champion at Wimbledon in 2013, a year after winning the Olympics and U.S. Open.
“I probably haven’t been as emotional as that after a match that I’ve won,” Murray told reporters later as dance music still reverberated around the vast warehouse-like arena on the edge of the city. (Reuters)
