Prior to last month’s BNP Paribas Open, David Goffin had never advanced to the semifinals of a Masters 1000 event; he had reached a quarterfinal once. And that quarterfinal performance last spring in Rome was achieved via a walkover from Andy Murray.
In other words, Goffin battled his way into ATP World Tour’s top 20 by racking up wins at tournaments similar to Goffin’s stature. Yes, that mean “small.” That’s not to say the 25-year-old is an absolute stranger to Grand Slam success. He has, in fact, reached the fourth round in three of the four majors–Roland Garros (2012), Wimbledon (2015), and the Australian Open (2016). But Goffin has done the majority of his damage at the 250-point level. Each of his titles is of the 250 variety (Kitzbuhel and Metz in 2014) and two of his three runner-up finishes have come at 250s (the other took place at a 500-pointer in Basel two years ago).
Goffin’s past struggles at the more prestigious events could be easily explained. Quite simply, he was unable to solve the top players in the world. Prior to this season, the Belgian’s record against top 20 opponents stood at 5-35. Only one of those five victories came against a top 10 adversary (Milos Raonic at the 2014 Basel event).
Maybe that’s what happens when you are 5’11” (listed generously on the ATP website) and 150 pounds (possibly accurate) going up against the world’s best, who these days traditionally stand well over six feet and can end points really before they even start with untouchable serves and with first-strike forehands and backhands.
In 2016, however, the little man is stepping up his game in a big way. The first two Masters 1000 semifinal showings of his career occurred in consecutive weeks in Indian Wells and Miami. In the process, Goffin took down one top 10 opponent (No. 4 Stan Wawrinka) and two other players in the top 20 (Marin Cilic and Gilles Simon). It has to be said that Goffin benefited from a poor performance by Wawrinka in the Indian Wells fourth round (most notably a shocking botched overhead at 5-5 in the third-set tiebreaker), but Goffin’s ability to keep it together mentally constituted a huge step in the right direction. Last summer in Cincinnati, he had led world No. 1 Novak Djokovic by a double-break lead in the final set at 3-0. He promptly lost the last six games of the match. Against Wawrinka, Goffin surged to a set and 4-0 advantage in the second only to give all of it back. The underdog also failed to serve out a 5-2 lead in the third, but he managed to right the ship and get past the finish line for a 6-3, 5-7, 7-6(5) victory.
“I have this question every day,” he said when asked about how he wins despite his diminutive stature. “It’s good in tennis that you don’t have to be big or a tall guy to be good. Otherwise I (would have) had no chance to get in the top 20. Tt’s good that in tennis you can find some solution against big players like Marin or Milos or (John) Isner. Yeah, maybe I’m quicker. I think I can take the ball earlier than (a) big guy. Of course I don’t have a big serve. But…I try to find some solution to win against big [servers]. I have other weapons. That’s why tennis is a nice sport.”
Goffin’s run in the desert almost never happened. In his opening match against 18-year-old American Frances Tiafoe, the 15th seed faced two match points serving at 4-5, 15-40 in the third set. Goffin saved both before ultimately surviving 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(2). Eighteen days later he had back-to-back Masters 1000 semifinal appearances under his belt.
Perhaps no singular moment in 2016 outside of Roger Federer’s withdrawal in Miami that ignited Horacio Zeballos’ fourth-round run has more drastically altered the fortunes of one player than Goffin’s escape against Tiafoe. It’s without question the biggest reason why the world No. 13 would find himself in London if the World Tour Finals began this week.
In fact, Goffin would be part of the elite eight-man field while mainstays like Federer, Rafael Nadal, David Ferrer, and Tomas Berdych would be on vacation.
Can he parlay this momentum into something even more than two straight Masters semis? Well, why not? The clay-court swing begins in earnest next week in Monte-Carlo before eventually giving way to grass. Although Goffin generally does his best work on the hard stuff, he is without question a true all-court player. In addition to his last 16 appearances at Roland Garros and at the All-England Club, he has reached finals on all three surfaces–including two on clay (one title, one runner-up).
And he should play loose, too, with a modest total of 405 ranking points to defend from now through the French Open. At only one clay-court event (Rome) did he earn more than 90 points last year. With Goffin lurking less than 300 points outside of a top 10 spot, it requires only simple math to see that such a career milestone may come sooner rather than later.
And it may not take anything super special to be achieved. It may take, well, just Goffin being Goffin.
“Of course my confidence is really high,” he said following his 7-6(5), 6-4 loss to Djokovic in the Miami semis. “Of course I did two good weeks; two good tournaments. But I was not on fire. It was like (a) really solid game, and I played my level. I really happy that mentally I was really competitive and I won a lot of good matches against many great players. For the next tournaments and the rest of this season, of course the confidence is really high.”
“Of course I played my best tennis,” Goffin concluded, “but like I said, it was not…it was not just on fire just for one tournament. It was my level. I think I can reproduce that in the next few months. I hope so. I hope I can still [improve] my game.”
The rest of the tour–and yes, even the top players in the world–better hope he can’t.
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