The United States has qualified for the United Cup quarter-finals in Perth after a thrilling comeback victory over Spain Monday.

World No. 9 Taylor Fritz had to save a match point against Jaume Munar to keep alive the defending champion’s hopes of topping Group A after Coco Gauff suffered a shock three-set loss to World No. 42 Jessica Bouzas Maneiro in the day’s opening match — it was Bouzas Maneiro’s best win by ranking in her career.

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The United States’ conquest of Group A was completed when Gauff found redemption on the mixed doubles court, partnering with Christian Harrison to a 7-6 (5), 6-0 win over Inigo Cervantes and Yvonne Cavalle-Reimers after they rallied from an early break in the first set. Spain was eliminated from the United Cup with the loss. 

Taking the court after Gauff’s shock three-set loss to Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, Fritz knew that the two-time champions would not win the group if he dropped his second match of the tournament, following his opening-round defeat to Sebastian Baez.

Seeing his first break points of the match at 5-6 in the third, Fritz failed to convert both match point opportunities. He later saved a match point on his own serve in the tiebreak before pulling out a 7-6 (4), 3-6, 7-6 (6) victory in 3 hours and 14 minutes.

“It was a crazy match,” Fritz said. “I thought Jaume played very well. I felt I was in a lot of his service games, but he played so well on so many of the big points.

“I had to come up with a lot to keep myself in the match or convert any of the big points. It was really tough, really physical.”

Fritz took a seven-minute medical time-out at 4-all in the third set to treat a bloodied toe after a long slide chasing a drop shot. He saved a break point in the following game. Fritz is hoping for a repeat of last year’s United Cup run, when he also dropped his opening match before winning four in a row to guide the Americans to their second title in three years.

Fritz entered the tournament after intensive offseason rehab on his knee for what he described as “pretty serious tendonitis,” but he didn’t give an inch to Munar in a series of grinding baseline exchanges. The World No. 9 also fired 16 aces, adding to the 22 he hit against Baez.

It was a herculean effort from Fritz, one which was needed only because Bouzas Maneiro — coming off a breakout 2025 season in which she reached a career-high ranking of No. 40, advanced to the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time at Wimbledon and made her first WTA 1000 quarterfinal in Montreal — stunned Gauff earlier in the day.

Seemingly intent on carrying the momentum from last season’s breakthrough into 2026, the Spaniard upset Gauff in dominant fashion, 6-1, 6-7 (3), 6-0 at RAC Arena. The loss is Gauff’s first at the United Cup in 10 matches across singles and doubles; she entered the day 6-0 in singles and 9-0 overall.

The win marked Bouzas Maneiro’s first career Top 5 victory and gave Spain a 1-0 lead over the United States ahead of the men’s singles match between Fritz and Munar.

Highlights: Bouzas Maneiro upsets Gauff at United Cup 2026

“I know Coco and she’s a fighter,” Bouzas Maneiro said after the match. “She’s there all the time in the match, so I knew that I had to be there, and even if I’m 4-1 up, I have to be there. And yeah, she won the second set, and I went to the bathroom and was trying to focus just to take it point by point.

“And that was my mentality in the third set. To be [there] with power every point because even if you are [up] 3-0 or 4-0, you have to be ready.”

Bouzas Maneiro set the tone immediately, breaking the World No. 4 in the opening game en route to a 5-0 lead. She went on to break the American in all four of her service games in the first set and nine times overall.

Her forehand — which produced 11 winners in the match — fueled her early surge, but her return game, paired with Gauff’s serving struggles, defined the rest of the match. It was a stark contrast to Gauff’s dominant performance earlier in the week against Argentina’s Solana Sierra.

Gauff landed just 60% of her first serves and won just under 60% of those points. She was further undone by 14 double faults and 54 unforced errors. Bouzas Maneiro could only match Gauff’s first-serve numbers but managed her unforced errors more effectively (41) and converted 9-of-12 break points.

Still, Gauff refused to go quietly despite her struggles. She rallied from 4-1 down to take the second set in a tiebreak and appeared poised for a remarkable comeback. But Bouzas Maneiro broke to open the decider and never looked back, racing to a 4-0 lead after saving two break points in a five-deuce game.

After two hours and 12 minutes, Bouzas Maneiro closed out the match with a third-set bagel, earning a bit of redemption after being blanked in a deciding set by Sierra earlier in the week, and secured the biggest win of her career despite her country’s elimination.