Storm Hunter beat Malene Helgo 6-2, 7-6 (7\/3)<\/a> when illness stopped first choice Maya Joint. <\/p>\nHunter and John-Patrick Smith won the doubles over Ulrikke Eikeri and Viktor Durasovic 4-6, 6-1, 10-4 for Australia\u2019s 2-1 final scoreline. <\/p>\n
Norway’s Casper Ruud shakes hands with Australia’s Alex de Minaur after Ruud’s victory at the United Cup tournament in Sydney. (Photo by Izhar KHAN \/ AFP)Source: AFP<\/p>\n
De Minaur and the Aussie team will next take the court against Czechia on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Coco Gauff rode to the rescue with a 6-1, 6-1 hammering of Solana Sierra to nudge the United States towards a 2-1 defeat of Argentina on Saturday. <\/p>\n
The defending champions trailed 0-1 after Sebastian Baez had earlier shocked sixth-ranked Taylor Fritz 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, despite the American firing down 23 aces. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so happy, I\u2019m pleased to give a point to Argentina. I felt very confident today,\u201d Baez said.<\/p>\n
Fritz suffered a minor ankle roll late in the match which put him off his power-hitting game and he was unable to close thegap on Baez, who beat the 28-year-old for the first time in six meetings. <\/p>\n
Gauff and Christian Harrison eventually clinched the tie in the mixed doubles decider, defeating Maria Lourdes Carle and Guido Andreozzi 6-4, 6-1. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really happy, there was a bit of pressure,\u201d Gauff said. \u201cI know I can play even better, I want to continue this.\u201d <\/p>\n
Stan Wawrinka launched the final season of his career with a marathon 5-7, 7-6 (7\/5), 7-6 (7\/5) win over Arthur Rinderknech to give Switzerland an unassailable 2-0 lead over France. <\/p>\n
The 40-year-old joined teammate Belinda Bencic as a winner after she began the tie 6-2, 6-4 over Leolia Jeanjean. The Swiss won the mixed doubles for a 3-0 final scoreline. <\/p>\n
Wawrinka is competing in Perth for the first time, needing to battle for nearly three-and-a-half hours to defeat an opponents decade his junior. <\/p>\n
The three-time Grand Slam champion sealed victory on his first match point and said: \u201cIt\u2019s amazing to have such support onmy first time here. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter 20 years on the tour it\u2019s amazing to finally play here. Today\u2019s match was tough but I\u2019m happy we could start 2-0.\u201d <\/p>\n
Also Saturday, in Sydney, Zhang Zhizhen led China to a 2-1 win over Belgium to begin their tournament. <\/p>\n
The United Cup has 18 nations and is a mixed-team event spread across Perth and Sydney that serves as build-up to the Australian Open later this month<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World number seven Alex de Minaur\u2019s preparations for this month\u2019s Australian Open took a hit with a shock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[208901,2095,208904,12910,1724,64,63,689,6571,2071,143468,51612,512,62369,9239,2057,78649,6239,3738,2592,2105,208895,15695,208900,208899,41706,208896,673,2041,2067,677,208898,46,208903,70397,208897,11298,85,13337,208902,6221,670,3599,747,750,148639,2614,3439,2062],"class_list":["post-390045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-almighty-rally","tag-america","tag-american-firing","tag-argentina","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-open","tag-belgium","tag-belinda-bencic","tag-casper-ruud","tag-china","tag-christian-harrison","tag-eastern-asia","tag-europe","tag-final-scoreline","tag-final-season","tag-fox-sports","tag-france","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-guido-andreozzi","tag-jason-mccawley","tag-john-patrick-smith","tag-maria-lourdes-carle","tag-match-point","tag-minor-ankle-roll","tag-new-south-wales","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-oceania","tag-opponents-decade","tag-perth","tag-problem-doing","tag-sebastian-baez","tag-singles-substitute","tag-south-america","tag-sports","tag-stan-wawrinka","tag-straight-sets-defeat","tag-switzerland","tag-sydney","tag-taylor-fritz","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-news","tag-united-cup","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-western-australia","tag-western-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390045","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=390045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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