The tie ended with Zizou Bergs losing to Jurij Rodionov, 7-6 (8/6) and 6-3, after two hours and 21 minutes. Then came the part where someone has to speak, and the captain spoke.
“No, I don’t think it’s dramatic,” Steve Darcis told RTBF, before adding: “I think we have nothing to be ashamed of in our performance.” To HLN he said he was proud of his players and that, unfortunately, you can’t always win. He also mentioned a complicated build-up with plenty of setbacks: he was without Alexander Blockx and Raphael Collignon, both withdrawn through injury.
The details: Gauthier Onclin opened the tie on his Davis Cup debut for Belgium and lost 6-4, 6-1 to Rodionov, Bergs levelled by beating Lukas Neumayer 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, and the Belgian pair of Sander Gillé and Joran Vliegen went down 7-6, 7-5 to Lucas Miedler and Neil Oberleitner. Kimmer Coppejans was waiting for a fifth match that never came.
Austria go through to the Final 8, held in Bologna at the end of November. Belgium miss it for the second year running, after reaching the semi-finals last season against hosts Italy. The two countries had met five times in the Davis Cup before this weekend, the last in 2011, and Austria had won all five.
Someone asks him whether it’s dramatic, and he has to answer no. Then he has to say he’s proud, and that you can’t always win. I’m not criticising. I’m comparing. In Couvin, when somebody came home beaten, we said it was all right, we talked about the weather, and we put the coffee on. Nobody ever had to explain that there was nothing to be ashamed of. The man who supplied the balls had nothing to explain.
It’s true, we checked: HLN.
