{"id":155788,"date":"2025-09-14T08:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T08:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/155788\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T08:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T08:30:07","slug":"alex-de-minaur-atones-to-force-australias-davis-cup-qualifier-into-decider-davis-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/155788\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex de Minaur atones to force Australia\u2019s Davis Cup qualifier into decider | Davis Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex de Minaur has atoned to force Australia\u2019s thrilling second-round Davis Cup<\/a> qualifier against Belgium to a deciding fifth rubber.<\/p>\n

A day after flopping against world No 91 Raphael Collignon to leave Australia trailing 2-0 in the best-of-five match tie, De Minaur electrified Sydney\u2019s Ken Rosewall Arena with a rousing 6-2 7-5 victory over Zizou Bergs.<\/p>\n

The world No 8 and six-time grand slam quarter-finalist was a man on a mission, reeling off three straight service games and breaking his 46th-ranked rival twice late in the second set to lock up the tie at 2-2 in less than 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

With the chance to secure only Australia\u2019s third Davis Cup triumph in history from 2-0 down, fellow Sydneysider Jordan Thompson was slated to play Collignon in the second reverse singles match.<\/p>\n

But captain Lleyton Hewitt had the option of instead playing Aleksandar Vukic and resting Thompson after the 31-year-old earlier on Sunday battled for almost two-and-a-half hours with Cup debutant Rinky Hijikata to reduce the deficit to 2-1 with a fighting three-set doubles win.<\/p>\n

Thompson and Hijikata recovered from the brink to pull off a tense 7-6 (9-7) 6-3 6-4 victory over Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen to keep the tie alive.<\/p>\n

The qualifier could have been all over had Thompson and Hijikata not rallied back from a set behind and three break points down at love-40 at 3-3 in the second.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s all-grand-slam-winning pairing drew a standing ovation from the packed crowd after conjuring their mighty comeback.<\/p>\n

Runners-up in 2022 and 2023 and semi-finalists last year, Australia are bidding to reach the quarter-finals for a fourth straight campaign.<\/p>\n

There was no wriggle room after De Minaur and Thompson lost their opening singles matches on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Belgian doubles duo were nigh on impenetrable on serve in the opening set against Thompson and Hijikata, barely dropping a point and conjuring the only break and set points.<\/p>\n

Hijikata was under huge pressure staring down set point on serve after coughing up an untimely first double fault of the match and watching the left-handed Vliegen rifle two massive return winners.<\/p>\n

Alex de Minaur cheers on Rinky Hijikata and Jordan Thompson in their qualifying second round doubles match. Photograph: Dean Lewins\/AAP<\/p>\n

The 2025 Wimbledon doubles runner-up rose to the challenge and then fired a booming forehand return down the line to give Australia their four set points in the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

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Alas, Hijikata and Thompson were unable to convert from 6-2 up as Belgium snatched the set to stun fans.<\/p>\n

The home team was in dire trouble in the second set, when Hijikata fell love-40 down serving at 3-3, but staved off four break points to stay in the match \u2013 and the tie.<\/p>\n

Riding the momentum shift, the Aussies broke the Belgians for a first time in the very next game to storm to a 5-3 lead as both stars nailed groundstroke winners after some pulsating rallies.<\/p>\n

In a match full of twists and turns, Thompson had to fend off two break points before Hijikata finally put Australia back on level terms with a piercing forehand volley on their fourth set point.<\/p>\n

Thompson fell to the court such was the ferocity of a forehand that drew the Belgian error for Australia to seize the decisive break in the third game of the deciding set.<\/p>\n

He was quickly up, chest-bumping and sprinting to the changeover in delight.<\/p>\n

Two more service holds each from Thompson and Hijikata were enough as Australia finally prevailed after two hours and 24 minutes of tense action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex de Minaur has atoned to force Australia\u2019s thrilling second-round Davis Cup qualifier against Belgium to a deciding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-155788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}