ESPN Tennis

LEUVEN, Belgium -- As far as great escapes go, it wasn't quite on the scale of Clint Eastwood making it off Alcatraz or Julia Roberts fleeing the clutches of Lyle Lovett.

It was the sort of match that the American men weren't supposed to win. Not this far away from home in front of a noisy, partisan crowd. Not on their least favorite surface, the crushed red brick of Paris, Rome, Monte Carlo and … Leuven.

None of that mattered, though, for world No. 3 Andy Roddick and the U.S. Davis Cup team at the end of a long weekend in Belgium.

It took a gutsy effort from Roddick, the linchpin of the American team, and a surprising line call midway through the fifth set to overcome Belgian No. 1 Olivier Rochus 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5), 4-6, 6-3, in 4 hours, 33 minutes. The win earned the pivotal third point to preserve a place for the U.S. squad in the 16-nation Davis Cup World Group for 2006.

"Playing at this level on clay is a big surprise for me," Roddick said. "That's always been a big question mark, so I think that was the best part for me. It's definitely one of the best matches that I've been involved in."

Roddick's win eased the burden for teammate James Blake, who would have played to stave off U.S. relegation to Zonal Group play for the first time since 1988. With relatively no pressure, Blake won the last match, a 7-5, 6-1 win over Belgium's Steve Darcis.

Not since Pete Sampras overcame Russia's Andrei Chesnokov in five sets in the 1995 final in Moscow had an American man won a five-setter on clay in Davis Cup play. Not since Andre Agassi came back from two sets down against Andrei Medvedev to win the 1999 Roland Garros final had an American won a clay match with so much at stake.

The book on how to play Roddick on clay has long been the following: Find a way to put his serve back in play, move him around, tire him out and wait for him to either lose patience from the baseline or make his way awkwardly to the net before a volley is sprayed.

José Acasuso read the book. Earlier this year at Roland Garros, Roddick fell to the Argentine in five after being two sets up. Sébastien Grosjean and Arnaud Clément read the book, handing Roddick two key defeats in the 2002 Davis Cup semifinals in Paris. Rafael Nadal and Carlos Moya apparently did their advance work, handing Roddick key losses in the 2004 Davis Cup final in Seville. Rochus looked like he just might join them, unofficially making just four unforced errors in the first two sets.

But this time, Roddick never folded, never stopped believing in himself, though he had several opportunities to do so. Most notable was after the 5-foot-5 Rochus extended the match to a fifth set by virtue of a break in the 10th game of the fourth set with Roddick beginning to cramp up.

And with Rochus serving at 2-3, 15-40 in the fifth, the match took a conclusive turn on a fateful call from the linesperson positioned behind the baseline on Roddick's side of the court.

At the end of a long baseline rally, Rochus swatted an inside-out forehand wide to Roddick's backhand and Roddick could do no more than toss up a desperation lob that barely crossed the net. It was the kind of shot that Tour players put away 98 of 100 times.

But Rochus took the ball on the fly and swung downward with a slicing motion that sent the ball careening toward the sideline in the deuce court. The ball was close, but it did appear to clearly land just inside the sideline in the deuce court. Roddick seemed to think the point was over and began walking to return serve in the ad-court. The chair umpire, Sune Alenkaer of Denmark, announced the score, 30-40, over the din of 3,500 partisan fans at the SportPlaza.

Not so fast.

United States captain Patrick McEnroe motioned to Alenkaer and pointed toward the linesperson, indicating that she had signaled the ball out. Alenkaer summoned her over and a discussion ensued.

Had she called the ball out? Yes, she had. Was she sure of the call? Yes, she was. The Dane then had no other recourse under the rules then to award the point to Roddick as the disbelieving Rochus and Belgian coach Steven Martens futilely contested the umpire's decision.

"I didn't get a good look at it and I didn't hear a call," Roddick said. "I didn't really know what was going on, to be honest.

"I said to Patrick, 'Did you get a good enough look at it to overturn the call?' And he said he didn't see it well enough to give the point away. So that was it from my end," he said.

Said McEnroe: "I didn't see it. I figured the point was over when he was getting ready to hit it. I turned away and then I looked back and the lineswoman put her arm out and called out.

"There was no mark. It's not our job to make the calls but I can understand their being upset."

A heartbroken Rochus -- a straight-sets winner over Blake in Friday's opening singles match and a loser, with Kristof Vliegen, to Mike and Bob Bryan in Saturday's doubles -- was somber after the match.

"What can you say? To end it like this is tough. He [Alenkaer] didn't even look at the mark," he said.

Holding his hands about six inches apart, the Belgian added, "It was inside the line like this."

His captain, Martens, was more succinct. Asked by a Belgian journalist if he felt his team was "robbed," he said, "Yes, of course we were."

The American contingent returns home with more than a win and rich Belgian chocolates; they return knowing they can get the job done on clay, an important development in light of the fact they can expect to play on the slow stuff in their away Davis Cup fixtures for the foreseeable future.

Roddick entered the weekend 1-5 on clay in Davis Cup competition but will fly home knowing his side dodged a bullet in Belgium.

"I played way too long out there to feel lucky," Roddick said. "But we could just have easily lost this weekend as won."

Whit Sheppard is a Paris-based sportswriter and writes for a variety of international publications.