Tennis: South Korea delight in stunning Davis Cup win over Belgium

SEOUL – South Korea captain Park Seung-kyu was left in a state of disbelief, after his team overturned a 2-0 deficit to complete a famous 3-2 Davis Cup victory over Belgium on Sunday and reach the group stage of the men’s team tournament.

The doubles pair of Nam Ji-sung and Song Ming-kyu began the fightback as they battled past Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-5), before Kwon Soon-woo levelled the tie at 2-2 by getting past David Goffin 3-6, 6-1, 6-3.

World No. 240 Hong Seong-chan then sealed the tie with a 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) win over Zizou Bergs in the deciding fifth rubber in Seoul.

It was the first time they had prevailed afer losing their opening two matches.

“I’m so grateful and proud of the players for not giving up and doing their best until the end,” Park said.

“It’s so good that I don’t know how to express it.

“The players made history as a team with the coaching staff. It’s like a dream to advance to the finals for two consecutive years. I don’t know if this is real.”

Hong, who lost his opening singles match to Goffin after Kwon fell in the first rubber, said he set out to frustrate Bergs, who is ranked more than 120 places above him.

“As soon as I started, I thought it was working well,” Hong said. “The atmosphere was good before the game.

“Of course, I was nervous, but I was also very excited. After the match point, I thought I showed it.”

A busy weekend of ties had 24 nations competing to reach the group stage at four venues from Sept 12-17, with 12 winners joining 2022 champions Canada, runners-up Australia and wildcards Spain and Italy.

Finland sealed their first berth in the group stage with a 3-1 win over 2016 champions Argentina. Croatia, Chile, Netherlands and Czech Republic also advanced on Sunday.

The other qualifiers were France, Britain, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.

Germany lost their tie against the Swiss on Saturday. But Boris Becker, 55, sat in the team’s box in the western city of Trier, posting on Instagram on Sunday “we fought hard and left everything on the court” – seven weeks after being released from a London prison.

The six-time Grand Slam champion, and former world No. 1, served eight months of a 2½-year sentence in England for flouting insolvency rules.

While Becker may have attended the weekend Davis Cup tie in an unofficial capacity, there is speculation he may return to his former role as head of men’s tennis with the German Tennis Association (DTB).

Speaking with the tabloid Bild, German No. 1 Alexander Zverev said: “We (German tennis) welcome him with open arms.”

Former Davis Cup captain Becker was invited by the DTB as a “friend of the team”.

He was seen embracing and consoling players at the end of the tie on Saturday.

“Boris knows how it’s done. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a player, a coach, the DTB or anyone else, he can help everywhere,” Zverev said.

Davis Cup teammate Oscar Otte also lauded the presence of Becker. “He said some really good things to me during the warm-up. That helps enormously,” said Otte.

“There’s a lot of experience. We’re all very happy he’s back.”

Becker’s return comes at a difficult time for German men’s tennis.

Former Wimbledon winner Michael Stich told Germany’s FAZ newspaper on Sunday “we have the problem that the gap to Zverev is huge, at least in individual terms”.

Zverev, a former world No. 2, is now 16th in the rankings while Otte is 80th and Daniel Altmaier is ranked 99th.

From 2013 to 2016, Becker coached Novak Djokovic to six of his 22 Grand Slams. REUTERS, AFP