Davis Cup: Goffin equalises with victory over Tsonga

David Goffin confirmed his magnificent form of the last few weeks and defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in three sets in the third singles of the Davis Cup final. The final match will decide the winner in 2017.

David Goffin is a banker for Belgium in the Davis Cup: last Sunday’s ATP finals finalist David Goffin won the sixth singles match for his home country this year, finishing 2-2 on 7-6 (5), 6-3 and 6-2. Like last year, the final singles match between Croatia and Argentina in Zagreb will have to decide the winner. Vienna winner Lucas Pouille and Steve Darcis are scheduled for this match.

In the first set, Tsonga had the better chances as a beater, but failed to take the Belgian’s service away from him. He saved himself with his usual excellent leg work into the tiebreak, which he won 7:5. The first break in the whole match was won by Goffin to 4:2 in the second set, Tsonga got no more chances to equalize.

In the third act, Goffin made sure that Tsonga’s thoughts of a comeback were dampened by the break to 2:1. In the David Cup, the Frenchman had never in the course of his career made up for a two-set backlog. David Goffin scored the final death blow with a 4-1 break, especially as Tsonga failed to score three breakpoints in the following game. And because of what he considered to be an erroneous decision, he temporarily lost concentration.

Tsonga was able to repel the first two match points of Goffin in the seventh game. After 2:44 hours, however, the Belgian number one with its own service made the equaliser perfect.

Lucas Pouille or Steve Darcis, who had won both individual points against Philipp Kohlschreiber and Alexander Zverev in the first round in Germany, can now write history: the French have been waiting for the Davis Cup title since 2001, for the Belgians it would be the first ever.