Australia on Brink or Davis Cup Deposit as Alex de Minaur stunned by Brave Belgian Raphael Collignon

Tennis officials were branded ‘barbaric’ while Australia in a shock 2-0 behind in a dramatic start of their second round Davis Cup qualifying terrace against Belgium in Sydney dropped.

Noody ranked Raphael Collignon conquered serious cramps to disturb the world no. 8 Alex de Minaur 7-5 3-6 6-3 in a three-hour epic of three hours before Zizou Bergs Jordan Thompson beat 7-6 (4) 6-4 in Saturday’s second singles.

The Twin defeats leave Australia who have to recover for the second time in almost a century of 2-0 to reach the quarterfinals for a fourth consecutive year.

Two-time Cup-winning large Todd Woodbridge was furious officials who did not call on physio to treat Collignon when he wriggled in pain at the Court in the court halfway through the opening set of the decisive set.

“This is ridiculous,” Woodbridge said in comments for the nine network. “This is, so cruel. Get the physio out of it, for God’s sake. This is more important [than the result]. This is now a health problem. “

Both the tournament doctor and the referee came to court to help the 23-year-old, but Woodbridge said that that was “not enough”.

“I have just sent a few messages that only try to clarify what the statement is here because I thought it was a concept that we had lost the barbaric look of what we have just seen,” said the double legend.

Not a medical time-out allowed because cramps are considered the result of a “lack of conditioning”, Collignon took off his cap and seemed to walk to the referee’s chair to shake hands during that first match of the third set.

But the world No. 91 changed thoughts, continued, threw six breaking points and fought heroic to the biggest victory of his career.

“It feels great. I thought I couldn’t end,” said Collignon. “I tried to play with that power, tried to go for it, to concentrate on the serve and I don’t know how I won. Yes, crazy. I think there is no pain when you play for your country.”

Playing for his country and high driving Two weeks after removing the double Grand Slam finalist and World No 12 Casper Ruud at the US Open, it was understandable why Collignon did not want to surrender.

While they hope that teammates Sander Gille and Joran Vliegan can remove the Australian Cup -debutant Rinky Hijikata and Olympic gold medal winner John Peers in Sunday’s doubles to secure Belgium, De Krijger said he would play on one leg for the reverse singles.

In what could still be the decisive rubber, Collignon is planned to play Thompson, which is assumed to keep the Australian captain Lleyton Hewitt the faith with his no. 2 after an empty loss for Bergs.

If Australia wins the Doubles, the Minaur will get the chance to level the draw against Bergs as the Davis Cupbod of 2022 and 2023 Davis Cup to qualify for the last 8 in Italy in November.

The only times Australia won 2-0, were in the final of 1939 and in 2015, when Hewitt inspired a famous comeback in the quarterfinals against Kazakhstan in Darwin.