David Goffin Postpones His Retirement With a Comeback From 3-0 Down in Brussels

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.

Who does he play next, and what happens if he wins?

Alex Michelsen, the fifth seed, in the round of 16 on Thursday. Michelsen is ranked No. 37 and reached the quarter-finals of the US Open this year, TennisUpToDate reports, so the step up from a lucky loser is real. Goffin needs four more wins to take the title in his last tournament, which is the arithmetic behind his on-court line about four matches. The likelier ending is a loss at some point this week, followed by the ceremony Wednesday was supposed to host. Until then, the party stays unbooked, and Brussels gets one more night of a career that has already given it more than anyone expected when he went 3-0 down.