Australia\u2019s Alex de Minaur produced one of the grittiest opening-set performances of his career Friday night in Sydney to set up a 6-4, 4-6 6-4 win over Poland\u2019s Hubert Hurkacz and send the last United Cup quarter-final to a deciding mixed doubles.<\/p>\n
The World No. 6 saved all nine break points he faced across his first four service games \u2013 including four in the second game of the match \u2013 to keep Australia alive after former World No. 1 Iga Swiatek brushed aside Aussie teen Maya Joint 6-1, 6-1. <\/p>\n
\u201cNights like these\u2026 these are just the best,\u201d De Minaur said. \u201cI love playing here. The atmosphere from the first ball to the last was amazing. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just had to fight him off from the first point to the last. It was a huge mental effort and we\u2019re still alive. I\u2019m glad I was able to bounce back after losing that second set. I had some dark thoughts in my head.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tie will now be decided by the mixed doubles, with the winner advancing to Saturday night\u2019s semi-final against defending champion United States. None of the four singles players will compete in the mixed doubles. Australians John-Patrick Smith and Storm Hunter will take on Jan Zielinski and Katarzyna Kawa.<\/p>\n
Playing his first tournament since last year\u2019s grass season, Hurkcaz was near untouchable in his first three service games when he dropped just one point on serve. But growing increasingly frustrated by his inability to cash in on his chances in return games, his unforced error count ticked up in the closing stages of the set.<\/p>\n
After De Minaur saved three break points to level at 4-4, the 26-year-old claimed the decisive break and then won 21 consecutive points on serve before unexpectedly dropping serve at the end of the second set. <\/p>\n
But inspired by deafening roars from Aussie fans inside Ken Rosewall Arena, De Minaur went into lockdown mode with just two unforced errors in the final set en route to his eighth victory in 11 United Cup singles appearances.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Swiatek overpowered Australia rising star Joint, capturing a convincing 6-1, 6-1 win in just 57 minutes at the United Cup quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
From start to finish, the World No. 2\u2019s experience prevailed as the Swiatek earned her second career win over Joint: Swiatek won 6-0, 6-2 in the Seoul semifinals, a tournament she\u2019d go on to win. Swiatek also earned her 15th singles win at the United Cup. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think the intensity — the balls get quite heavy so I\u2019m happy that I was always pushing forward,\u201d Swiatek said on court. \u201cI got pretty confident at the end so for sure it was a good match.\u201d <\/p>\n
Joint held serve to have an initial 1-0 lead, but after, the Swiatek show ensued. The six-time Grand Slam champion overwhelmingly controlled the rallies, often forcing Joint to scramble from side-to-side just to keep the rally alive. <\/p>\n
Swiatek won six straight games to win the first set with a breadstick in 26 minutes and had garnered \u201cIga\u201d chants from her Polish supporters early on into the match. Her set point, a cross-court forehand winner that sped past an outstretched Joint, summed up the match best. <\/p>\n
In the second, Swiatek and Joint traded holds, the latter of which earned some encouragement from the home crowd. Similarly, Swiatek recaptured the lead with a break, and didn\u2019t look back, en route to the double breadstick win. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s Alex de Minaur produced one of the grittiest opening-set performances of his career Friday night in Sydney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-401873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401873","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=401873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}