Goffin's Singles Career Ends in Brussels as Nadal Leads the Tributes

Update, October 22: Goffin’s singles career ended on Thursday with a 6-3, 6-4 loss to Alex Michelsen, followed by a tribute video and his farewell speech. The closing section below carries the ending. His doubles quarterfinal with Raphael Collignon was still to be played later on Thursday at publication, so this page does not yet call the doubles his final match or report its result.

Update, October 23: Goffin withdrew from the doubles quarterfinal after the singles loss, so the Michelsen match is his final professional match. The closing section below carries the full ending.

David Goffin’s retirement lasted until the third set. The 35-year-old Belgian walked onto Centre Court in Brussels on Wednesday evening knowing any match could be the last of his career, lost the first set to lucky loser Remy Bertola, then went 3-0 down in the decider, and still found a way out: a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 win in more than two hours that earned him at least one more match, against Alex Michelsen on Thursday, and sent a home crowd home hoarse.

What happened in Brussels on Wednesday night?

Goffin beat world No. 219 Remy Bertola, a Swiss lucky loser playing only his second ATP Tour main-draw match, in three sets at the European Open, Tennis Majors reports. The win took more than two hours and finished with Goffin on his knees on match point, after he had closed the match with a winner. The bare numbers explain the noise: Sportradar’s match record has the two players level on total points won, 91 each, with Goffin taking the games count 14 to 13. A career nearly ended on a margin that thin.

How close did his career come to ending?

One point. After levelling the match, Goffin fell 3-0 behind in the deciding set and faced a break point that would have left him two breaks down with Bertola serving, TennisUpToDate reports. He held, worked his way back to 4-4, broke there, and served the match out. The context made the comeback stranger. Goffin is ranked No. 657 and had not won a main-tour match all season, after two exits in the second round of qualifying, per Tennis Majors. A former top-10 player, in the last event of his career, had to produce his first win of the year just to keep the week alive.

What did Goffin say after the match?

He joked about the party. “I’m going to have to cancel the evening I booked,” he said on court, in TennisTemple’s account of the interview. “It was both the most beautiful and the toughest entrance onto the court I’ve ever experienced. I was very nervous, and the most important thing was the crowd’s support from the first point to the last. Finishing the match with a winner was huge.” He thanked his friends, family, teammates, wife and daughter, then looked at Thursday: “And we go again tomorrow. It’s not over, there are only four matches left. What is that in a career?”

What does the career he is postponing actually contain?

More than his current ranking suggests. Goffin is the highest-ranked Belgian man in the history of the ATP rankings, peaking at No. 7 in 2017, Tennis Majors reports, and that season he beat Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in the same week on his way to the final of the ATP Finals. His six titles put him on the list of ATP title winners as the most successful Belgian man of the Open Era, with the records for wins and titles by a Belgian man, and he helped Belgium reach the Davis Cup final in 2015 and 2017. This is his eighth appearance at the European Open, which ties Richard Gasquet for the most in the event’s history, and his best result here was a semi-final in 2017. The gap between that record and a No. 657 ranking is the whole story of Wednesday night.

Why did Wednesday close one farewell and extend another?

Because the same day handled two endings in opposite ways. In Almaty, Stefanos Tsitsipas ended Mikhail Kukushkin’s 20-year career and then asked him for an autographed shirt, a farewell that went ahead on schedule in front of Kukushkin’s home crowd. Brussels got the other version. Goffin, whose place in the game’s modern history rests on beating its biggest names at their peak, was the home player this time, and his crowd refused the ending in the same way he did. One farewell was accepted with a signed shirt; the other has been postponed at least a day, in a week when the WTA Finals field was also settled by a retirement in Ningbo, a reminder that October tennis is mostly players deciding how their seasons, and sometimes their careers, finish.

How did his singles career actually end?

It ended on Thursday, in straight sets, with a ceremony Wednesday had postponed. Alex Michelsen beat Goffin 6-3, 6-4 on Centre Court, TennisHead reports, bringing down the curtain on the singles career a day after the Bertola comeback had lifted it again. Before Goffin spoke, the stadium played a tribute video. Rafael Nadal congratulated him on an amazing career and said it had been a huge pleasure to share practices and matches. Richard Gasquet called him an incredible person and an exceptional player. Zizou Bergs, the Belgian who credits Goffin for his own backhand, thanked him for being a big man in a small country, in TennisHead’s account of the video.

Goffin’s own speech, carried by TennisHead, thanked the people the videos came from, his parents who introduced him to tennis, his wife Stephanie and the sacrifices she made across 17 or 18 years on tour, his Davis Cup teammates, and the crowd. The ceremony did not stop at the video: TennisUpToDate reports he was handed a personal trophy on court while the crowd stayed to applaud the Belgian. He told the ATP website he had no regrets: “I gave everything to try to reach my goals. I’m proud of the attitude that I always had in front of the difficulties that I had in my career. I’m proud of the wins I had, the opponents I beat.” “It has been a wonderful path, a magnificent career; I’ve savored every moment,” he said. “Now, it’s simply time to move on to the next chapter and pass the torch to the new generation of Belgian tennis players.” He closed with the line Brussels had been hoping for since Wednesday: “I won’t say ‘see you next year,’ but I will say: see you very soon.” The farewell parallels this week’s other ending in Lyon, where Stan Wawrinka’s run ended against Cobolli with only Basel left.

Has he played his last professional match?

Yes. The doubles question that kept this page open at publication is settled: Goffin withdrew from Thursday’s doubles quarterfinal after the singles loss, EssentiallySports and TennisUpToDate report. He and Collignon had earned the quarterfinal by beating the third seeds Marc Polmans and Jan Zielinski 6-4, 7-5 on Monday, but there was no final doubles match. That makes the 6-3, 6-4 loss to Michelsen the last professional match of his career, and closes the 18-year run at 634 tour matches, 358 wins and six titles. TennisUpToDate reports he has officially retired and will not compete on the ATP Tour again. The farewell that began with a video led by Nadal and a personal trophy on Centre Court is now the full story, in a week when Stan Wawrinka’s run ended against Cobolli with only Basel left.

Related, October 24: the European Open stayed in Brussels after Goffin’s farewell, and its closing rounds produced a different kind of Brussels story, as fans paid €46 for seats with blocked views after the tournament moved its centre court to Palais 5.