David Goffin gave Belgium a 1-0 lead over Argentina in their Davis Cup semifinal on Friday with a 7-5, 7-6 (3), 6-3 win over Federico Delbonis in the first singles match.
Belgium will host Britain in the final from November . 27-29 in a repeat of their 1904 final when the Britons won 5-0 at Wimbledon.
Darcis had squandered two match points at 5-4 in the fourth set but after forging ahead in the tiebreak he powered away a smash to end the contest and was immediately mobbed by his team mates who rushed on to court to celebrate.
Argentina will be playing their 10th semi-final in 14 years, although they have won only four of those ties and then lost each time in the final.
The United States had a 2-1 lead going into Sunday’s reverse singles after Steve Johnson and Sam Querrey held their serve throughout a 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 win over Istomin and Farrukh Dustov in the doubles a day earlier. “It’s unbelievable. For our small country it’s pretty big”.
Tomic, who earned Australia’s first point by beating British No8 Dan Evans in Friday’s singles matches, hailed the fervent Scottish crowd and tipped Murray to lead the team to glory. “He gave me the chance to finish the job”.
Earlier, Belgium’s No. 1 player David Goffin defeated Diego Schwartzman to draw Belgium level. “I’m delighted to get through, we knew this would be difficult, Australia have so much depth and experience but we fought extremely hard all weekend”.
The 29-year-old hasn’t played a Davis Cup tie since 2013 and the five-time champions have suffered in his absence with three consecutive defeats to Germany, Brazil and Russian Federation propelling them out of the World Group.
Darcis and Bemelmans got off to a sluggish start but saved 16 of 21 break points they faced before the Argentine pair prevailed 6-2, 7-6 (2), 5-7, 7-6 (5).
Schwartzman would lament his unforced errors, which totalled 49 during his 6-3, 6-2, 6-1 loss to the world number 15.
“It was a really close match that was decided by little things”, Delbonis said in the post-match press conference.
