Australia and Norway were tied 1-1 after the singles matches in their opening United Cup tie in Sydney on Saturday, with Storm Hunter and Casper Ruud each earning straight-sets victories for their countries.<\/p>\n
United Cup:\u00a0Scores<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Standings<\/a><\/p>\n Hunter, 31, returned to competition last season after missing nearly a year between March 2024 and March 2025 because of an Achilles tendon injury that required surgery. She stepped in as a last-minute replacement on Saturday for Australia No. 1 Maya Joint, who was sidelined because of illness.<\/p>\n The experienced left-hander made a fast start against the 26-year-old Helgo, who is competing in the United Cup for the third time. Hunter broke serve twice in the opening set to take it 6-2.<\/p>\n Helgo, ranked No. 532 and seeking her first WTA Tour-level victory, raced to a 4-1 lead in the second set before Hunter \u2014 a former world No. 1 doubles player and a Grand Slam mixed doubles champion \u2014 rallied to level the set at 5-5.<\/p>\n Helgo saved three break points in a crucial 11th game to hold for a 6-5 lead, but Hunter held serve to force a tiebreak. The Australian then dominated the tiebreak to seal a 6-2, 7-6 (7-3) victory and give Australia a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n “This is pretty emotional for me,” Hunter said during her postmatch interview. “It’s been a tough two years, rupturing my Achilles and finding my way back, relearning everything. I never thought I’d be back on this court in a singles match playing for Australia.<\/p>\n “Obviously, this was Maya’s moment. Maya has had an incredible year. Such a shame she couldn’t come out tonight. I know she’s so excited to come and play in front of everyone. Hopefully she gets an opportunity on Tuesday. \u00a0But I’m just glad I could get the win for the team.”<\/p>\n In the second singles match, Ruud produced a solid performance to defeat home favorite Alex de Minaur 6-3, 6-3 in 1 hour, 34 minutes, leveling the tie at 1-1.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m happy to get a great start,” Ruud told ATP No. 1 Club member Jim Courier in his on-court interview. “To beat Alex here in Australia is one of the toughest challenges we have in tennis, so I\u2019m super happy to have that on my resume now.\u201d<\/p>\n Ruud played aggressively and decisively, preventing De Minaur from finding any rhythm. The former world No. 2 saved all five break points he faced and consistently put pressure on the Australian’s serve, earning 10 break chances and converting three.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s a great start a new season,” Ruud said. “I think we\u2019ve all seen Alex in better shape than he was today. He was doing a few unforced errors that typically he doesn\u2019t, so I got some free points here and there. You saw in the beginning he was struggling with his serve, so I got a free break and just built from there.”<\/p>\n The tie will be decided by the mixed doubles match where Hunter will team up with John-Patrick Smith to take on Ruud and Ulrikke Eikeri.<\/p>\n More to come<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia and Norway were tied 1-1 after the singles matches in their opening United Cup tie in Sydney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,83],"class_list":["post-388963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388963","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=388963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}