{"id":395154,"date":"2026-01-06T10:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/395154\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T10:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:55:08","slug":"alex-de-minaur-wins-in-straight-sets-vs-jakub-mensik-maya-joint-loses-to-barbora-krejcikova-australia-vs-czechia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/395154\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex de Minaur wins in straight sets vs Jakub Mensik; Maya Joint loses to Barbora Krejcikova, Australia vs Czechia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex de Minaur<\/a> has kept Australia’s hopes alive at the United Cup<\/a>, recording a straight-sets win over Jakub Mensik and putting his hand up to play the mixed doubles decider.<\/p>\n

It was a must-win scenario for de Minaur after teammate Maya Joint<\/a> earlier lost to Barbora Krejcikova, but he was up to the task in the 6-4, 6-1 victory.<\/p>\n

The world No.6 was on fire early, breaking Mensik’s serve in the first set and let out an audible “come on” on multiple occasions as a nod to Lleyton Hewitt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Kyrgios bundled out in straight sets after injury scare<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Dragons coach admits ‘anxious’ moments before $5m signing<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Barmy Army told to ‘stop booing’ as Smith nears Bradman<\/a><\/p>\n

De Minaur took the first set despite Mensik saving multiple set points as the Sydney crowd rallied behind the country’s top-ranked player.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old flew out of the gates in the second set as well, breaking Mensik again as Ken Rosewall Arena surged behind the Aussie, knowing the enormity of the situation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Alex de Minaur celebrates his win at the United Cup.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

De Minaur raced away in the second set, despite one magical tweener from Mensik, to send the Australia-Czech Republic showdown to a mixed doubles decider.<\/p>\n

“He broke his opponent,” Todd Woodbridge.<\/p>\n

“Jakub Mensik did not know where to go. That will be a very uplifting and confidence-boosting match for Alex.” <\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Joint struggled in her return from illness at the United Cup, going down in straight sets to former world No.2 Barbora Krejcikova.<\/p>\n

The Aussie tennis summer kicks off with the 2026 United Cup from Friday, January 2. Watch it live and free on Nine and 9Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She was outgunned and outclassed by Krejcikova and went down 6-4, 6-1 in Sydney on Tuesday evening in the first leg of Australia’s clash with the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n

Krejcikova raced to a 4-1 lead in the opening set but started to wobble slightly, which allowed Joint to force a much tougher task for the two-time grand slam winner before the more experienced player eventually rallied back to clinch it.<\/p>\n

The young gun was broken with her first service game in the second set and appeared to be struggling to keep up with Krejcikova, who took a two-game buffer.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Maya Joint during her United Cup match.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

“What you see with Maya today is due to her illness, she’s sort of waning in and out of intensity,” Andrea Petkovic said on commentary during the second set.<\/p>\n

“When I saw her last year, she was so good at keeping that intensity high throughout the entire match and that’s going to be the real challenge for her, to find that point-in point-out intensity because the energy levels must be lower than usual.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Things continued to unravel for the 19-year-old, blowing an opportunity to hold serve and allowing Krejcikova to further assert her dominance.<\/p>\n

“Joint is starting to find this really hard going now,” Sam Smith said.<\/p>\n

She managed to give the home fans a glimmer of hope when she finally held serve mid-way through the second set, but it wasn’t enough to stop Krejcikova’s dominance.<\/p>\n

“Tough night for Maya Joint, I feel for her and it wasn’t her best performance given the circumstances,” Casey Dellacqua said after the match.<\/p>\n

Co-commentator Smith noted it was “not really a reflection of her ability” due to illness.<\/p>\n

The mixed doubles will see Storm Hunter team up with de Minaur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex de Minaur has kept Australia’s hopes alive at the United Cup, recording a straight-sets win over Jakub…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-395154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395154","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=395154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}