{"id":402924,"date":"2026-01-09T23:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T23:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/402924\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T23:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T23:00:10","slug":"australia-loses-to-poland-2-1-in-united-cup-quarterfinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/402924\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia loses to Poland 2-1 in United Cup quarterfinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia captain Lleyton Hewitt has not offered excuses following the host nation’s loss to Poland in the United Cup quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

After Poland’s six-time major champion Iga \u015awi\u0105tek thrashed Maya Joint 6-1, 6-1 in the opening singles rubber at Sydney’s Ken Rosewall Arena, Alex de Minaur levelled the tie for Australia with a pulsating 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 victory over Hubert Hurkacz.<\/p>\n

But Poland rebounded to win the deciding mixed doubles rubber, with Katarzyna Kawa and Jan Zieli\u0144ski defeating Storm Hunter and John-Patrick Smith 6-4, 6-0.<\/p>\n

Poland will face the United States in the semifinals.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport will have live coverage of the Australian Open from January 18.<\/p>\n

Hewitt did not regret resting de Minaur from the mixed doubles, as he wanted to manage the workload of the world number six ahead of the Australian Open, which begins on January 18.<\/p>\n

“Alex was feeling a few tweaks the last few days and he’s been doing a lot of training in the off-season to get ready for five-set matches,” Hewitt said.<\/p>\n

“We decided that the best thing for him, for his body moving forward, was not to put his hand up to play mixed tonight.<\/p>\n

Joint gets Barty’s backing ahead of Aus Open seeding<\/a><\/p>\n

Teenage star Maya Joint will be the first home women’s seed at the Australian Open since former world number one Ash Barty broke a 44-year title drought in 2022.<\/p>\n

“It is tough though, as well to make a decision so quickly, and also if you are that second match to turn around straight away and switch on.<\/p>\n

“And you just don’t want to risk injury as well and especially the amount of moving that he had to do tonight against a bloody quality player.”<\/p>\n

De Minaur delivered for his country in the singles with a tenacious performance against former Wimbledon semifinalist Hurkacz.<\/p>\n

He was forced to dig deep to win the match, having fended off 10 of Hurkacz’s 11 break-point chances in an epic encounter stretching two hours and 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

“That’s what it took,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I just had to fight him off from the first point to the last, a huge mental effort.”<\/p>\n

\"Iga<\/p>\n

Former world number one Iga \u015awi\u0105tek only conceded two games against Maya Joint. (Getty Images: Brendon Thorne)<\/p>\n

\u015awi\u0105tek had earlier overcome a mysterious meltdown to crush Joint in just 58 minutes to give Poland a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n

But the former world number one’s victory was anything but straightforward.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old burst into tears at the opening changeover, despite breaking the Australian teenager in the third game for a 2-1 lead, only to return to the court and play on.<\/p>\n

\u015awi\u0105tek gave her courtside teammates a thumbs-up after gaining a double break for a 4-1 lead and barely lost a point in winning six games on the spin to seize the first set.<\/p>\n

She won the second set in equally convincing fashion.<\/p>\n

Poland will meet the US in their semifinal on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

Belgium and Switzerland will contest the first semifinal earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia captain Lleyton Hewitt has not offered excuses following the host nation’s loss to Poland in the United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[18278,64,63,213670,2636,37660,31229,5427,83102,85,747,148639],"class_list":["post-402924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-alex-de-minaur","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-hubert-hurkacz","tag-iga-swiatek","tag-lleyton-hewitt","tag-maya-joint","tag-poland","tag-quarterfinals","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-united-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402924","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=402924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}