{"id":388880,"date":"2026-01-03T11:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388880\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T11:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:32:11","slug":"hunter-storms-to-united-cup-win-as-joint-replacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388880\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunter storms to United Cup win as Joint replacement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Storm Hunter has stood tall as a last-minute replacement for an unwell Maya Joint to defeat Norway’s Malene Helgo in a perfect start to Australia’s United Cup campaign.<\/p>\n

Doubles specialist Hunter won 6-2 7-6 (7-3) in the host nation’s opening tie at Sydney’s Ken Rosewall Arena in Australia’s top-ranked female player Joint’s absence.<\/p>\n

World No.32 Joint failed to recover in time from an illness for Saturday’s clash, having missed scheduled media and practice sessions the day before.<\/p>\n

But Australia will hope the 19-year-old rising star will be fit to face two-time grand slam winner Barbora Krejcikova in Tuesday’s tie against Czechia.<\/p>\n

World No.7 Alex de Minaur can snare victory for Australia if he defeats Casper Ruud, ranked No.12, in the men’s singles later on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Hunter wrapped up the opening set in 35 minutes, before Norway’s world No.533 wrestled momentum following a marathon game at 5-5 which produced 11 deuces.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old won the match tiebreak on her serve after an hour and seven minutes.<\/p>\n

“This is pretty emotional for me,” Hunter said while holding back tears.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a pretty tough two years, rupturing my Achilles and fighting my way back through surgery and relearning everything.<\/p>\n

“I never thought I’d be back on this court in a singles moment playing for Australia.”<\/p>\n

The 2023 year-end doubles world No.1, Hunter had suffered an Achilles tendon injury during Billie Jean King Cup training in April 2024.<\/p>\n

The popular veteran has clawed her way back to be ranked world doubles No.33 since making her comeback in February last year, but has slipped from a career-high singles ranking of No.114 to No.426.<\/p>\n

\"Maya<\/p>\n

Maya Joint will look to overcome illness after being seeded for the Australian Open. (Chris Kidd\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Hunter will link up with John-Patrick Smith for the mixed doubles matches against Ulrikke Eikeri and Ruud following the men’s singles on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Joint endures a frustrating start to the season after setting her sights on reaching the third round of the Australian Open following last year’s breakout campaign.<\/p>\n

Joint is set to be seeded for the first time at Melbourne Park, having risen to world No.32 off the back of titles at Eastbourne and Morocco.<\/p>\n

The Brisbane-based teenager exited last year’s Australian Open in the first round as a wildcard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Storm Hunter has stood tall as a last-minute replacement for an unwell Maya Joint to defeat Norway’s Malene…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,81320,208397,31229,44,93443],"class_list":["post-388880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-barbora-krejcikova","tag-malene-helgo","tag-maya-joint","tag-news","tag-storm-hunter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}