Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins keep British Davis Cup hopes alive

• Britain trail 2-1 Belgium going into final day of tie
• Josh Goodall now needs to play 'match of his life'
hutchins and fleming
Ross Hutchins, left, and Colin Fleming won against Belgium to keep Britain in the Davis Cup running. Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty Images

Davis Cup captain Leon Smith lavished praise on Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins after the doubles pair had kept alive Britain's slim hopes of beating Belgium in their Europe/Africa Zone Group I tie in Glasgow.

The Anglo-Scottish duo made it three straight victories in the competition by beating Ruben Bemelmans and David Goffin 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 at Braehead Arena to send the hosts into the final day's singles trailing 2-1.

Despite Fleming and Hutchins' efforts, Britain are still massive outsiders to win the tie, and their hopes of at least forcing a deciding rubber now rest on Josh Goodall, 253rd in the rankings, beating World No59 Olivier Rochus.

Earlier defeats for Goodall and Dan Evans had left Britain facing a first defeat in six ties under Smith.

But, while Belgium were favourites to win both those matches, the reverse was true in the doubles, with Fleming and Hutchins having established themselves as one of the better pairs in world tennis.

They won their second ATP World Tour title together last month in Delray Beach and currently sit 10th in the ATP World Tour doubles race, where the top eight at the end of the year qualify for the Tour Finals at the O2 Arena in London.

"They're brilliant to have on the team sheet," said Smith. "They're obviously a team on the way up, they're the most fantastic guys to be around for the whole squad, they lift everything.

"They're so professional. You come in at the start of the week and they're happy to help the singles guys in their play. And they've got so much more to come. I think this team is going to grow and grow."

Bemelmans and Goffin had never played together before and the latter was making his Davis Cup debut but they are both ranked in the top 150 in singles and they came out firing, breaking Fleming in his first service game and easing through the rest of the set.

The British pair were struggling on return in particular but they raised their game in the second and, although Hutchins was broken serving for the set, they managed to break through again in the 12th game to level proceedings.

Their greater doubles experience and prowess eventually gave them the edge in sets three and four, although the Belgians made sure it stayed tight right until the end.

Fleming, the only Scot in the side, felt a lack of matches in recent weeks may have contributed to their slow start, saying: "They were playing very well. I lost a bad service game but on top of that we didn't really find our feet very quickly.

"We haven't played many matches recently just because of the nature of the schedule, so we were maybe a little bit ring rusty, but it's a long match so we were confident definitely that we could raise our performance, and then if we could do that we'd have a chance of turning the match around."

Hutchins had no doubt the benefits of playing together week in, week out helped them to win the second set, and ultimately the match.

"It was crucial," he said of their efforts in levelling the match. "You never want to go two sets down. We upped our game a lot at the start of the second, being in every return game.

"Because we play with each other full-time, we know when a crucial time is and we're able to up our game together and really feed off each other, and I think that's what happened today.

"Even the fourth set was tough but we just have the belief that our plays will work and at crunch time normally they've come good for us."

Smith added: "It's still very, very difficult but it's great that it's alive going into Sunday.

"Tonight we'll hammer through some of the tactical stuff and what we learned from day one, but at the end of the day it's going to be down to first of all Josh to go out and play probably the match of his life."

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