![\"Alex](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/80c251507a2a88eea7ca5f0ebf998981c086fe74.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n\u201cIt was a brutal decision,\u201d he said. \u201cDavis Cup has been my priority for basically my whole career. And, for me, there\u2019s no greater goal than to be able to lift the trophy one day with Lleyton, with the team, for Australia again. So that\u2019s been a top priority of mine. We\u2019ve gotten awfully close for a couple of years.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy focus is just to keep on improving as a player so I can help out the team when they need me, and I\u2019ve got full faith in all the Aussie players that are going to Ecuador.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Alex de Minaur\u2019s only tattoo.<\/p>\n
Australia last year failed to qualify for the Davis Cup finals for the first time since 2021. Hewitt has named James Duckworth, Aleksander Vukic, Rinky Hijikata, Jordan Thompson and Thanasi Kokkinakis for the Ecuadro clash.<\/p>\n
Hewitt said he and de Minaur had held lengthy discussions over whether he should participate, and were comfortable with where they landed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the draw came out it was extremely tough,\u201d Hewitt said. \u201cConsidering the time of the year, the conditions, the surface, so many variables \u2026 for me, it\u2019s been working with Alex to not put him in a position like he was a year and a half ago and had to play injured for nine months.<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
\u201cBig picture in mind, we came up with a plan that we think is the best for him moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hewitt also confirmed world No.50 Alexei Popyrin had made himself unavailable for selection.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have loved to have called on Alexei,\u201d Hewitt said. \u201cEspecially with his game style on clay, and the weapons he possesses. After that, obviously, we\u2019ve gone for guys that give us a lot of depth in singles matches, but also we\u2019ve got a couple of good doubles options among the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so many unknowns, though. Not many of our guys have played at that high an altitude or even close to that, so we won\u2019t 100 per cent know the conditions until we get over there. But I feel like we\u2019ve got plenty of choices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australia will play Poland in the United Cup quarter-finals on Friday.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Serbian Davis Cup captain Viktor Troicki has confirmed Djokovic won\u2019t be part of the Davis Cup team to face Chile on February 6-7.<\/p>\n
\u201cA difficult visit to Chile awaits, an awkward time for everyone, straight after the Australian Open. We\u2019ll play on clay right after hardcourt, which doesn\u2019t fit into many players\u2019 schedules as they\u2019re defending a large number of points,\u201d Troicki told Sport Klub in Serbia.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as our best player, Novak Djokovic, is concerned, this is a very awkward time for him. We all expect him to do well and go far at the Australian Open. It wouldn\u2019t be realistic to expect him to fly from Melbourne to Chile straight after a gruelling grand slam, change surfaces and be with us this time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt was a brutal decision,\u201d he said. \u201cDavis Cup has been my priority for basically my whole career.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-396681","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\/396681","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=396681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}