David Goffin will be subbed in for Kimmer Coppejans in today’s pivotal doubles rubber. He will be playing with Steve Darcis for Belgium as the face of against the brotherly pair of Andy and Jamie Murray for Great Britain.
Fourth Different Pairing For The Belgians
Belgium captain Johan Van Herck and has mixed up the doubles teams in all four ties this season. In their opening tie against Switzerland, it was Ruben Bemelmans and Niels Desein. Bemelmans played in the singles rubber and was an option to be one of the players who could have played the doubles with Darcis, along with Goffin.
The quarterfinals saw a team Bemelmans and Coppejans play against Canada. This was the clinching rubber for the Belgians in this tie, and it is the only live rubber that Coppejans has played in up to this point. Finally in the semifinals, the duo of Bemelmans and Darcis took center stage. This pairing is the only one that has lost for Belgium so far; they lost to the Argentina’s duo of Carlos Berlocq and Leonardo Mayer.
A Stroke Of Genius?
Belgium hired newly retired Michael Llodra as a doubles specialist coach earlier in the year. With that in mind, the Frenchman is looking to play some mind games on Great Britain captain Leon Smith with this change. Bemelmans is the only player to have featured in all three doubles rubbers.
The stats say this isn’t the best choice of team with Darcis only winning one of seven Davis Cup doubles rubbers plus Goffin winning his first doubles match of the season last month at the China Open. The duo last played together in 2013 and have only played four tournaments together. However, Davis Cup shows that history and form can be thrown out with the biggest upsets coming from the most unlikely sources so it would be quite the call by Van Herck and Llodra should Belgium pull this out..