Watched on by Australian legend Pat Cash and scores of passionate fans at ANZ Arena, Li Tu and James McCabe have continued an Australian tradition of delivering their best in doubles at their home Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
After victory over Belgian duo Zizou Bergs and Raphael Collignon, Tu and McCabe continued their AO 2026 campaign with a straight-sets upset of No.1 seeds Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool on Friday. It sets a potential meeting with fellow Australians Jason Kubler and Marc Polmans, who face Switzerland\u2019s Jakub Paul and Brit Marcus Willis for a place in the third round.<\/p>\n
Wildcard recipients in their first-time pairing at the Australian Open, Tu and McCabe eliminated their credentialed opponents 7-6(5) 6-4 in an hour and 25 minutes. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Cash and Glasspool are the reigning Wimbledon men\u2019s doubles champions, after victory over Australia\u2019s Rinky Hijikata and Dutch partner David Pel in the 2025 final.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
McCabe and Tu’s AO 2026 singles campaigns ended in qualifying \u2013 New South Wales’ McCabe in the first round and South Australian Tu in the second \u2013 with doubles providing a chance to extend their stay in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very grateful for the opportunity,\u201d Tu told tennis.com.au earlier this week. \u201cJust looking forward to getting out there and having a bit of fun. It\u2019s obviously another opportunity, which I don\u2019t take for granted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Each player achieved career-best singles rankings in mid-2025, with McCabe climbing to world No.164 and Tu a peak of No.160.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old Tu spent several months off tour last year after the birth of baby daughter Elody and is now working with a team including Daniel Buberis, Luke Saville and the newly-appointed coach Cash as he aims for further gains in singles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that my game has improved for sure, like all the individual parts,\u201d said Tu. \u201cIt’s just about putting it together in a match and you know, I’m very confident that I can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, all focus is on further gains in doubles where McCabe and Tu will aim to become the third all-Australian pair in the past five years \u2013 joining Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrigos in 2022 and Rinky Hijikata and Jason Kubler in 2023 \u2013 to lift the men’s doubles trophy.<\/p>\n
Kokkinakis and Kyrgios, who each spent the majority of their 2025 seasons sidelined with injury, pushed Kubler and Marc Polmans in an entertaining KIA Arena battle in their AO 2026 opener on Thursday but fell in three sets to their fellow Australians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watched on by Australian legend Pat Cash and scores of passionate fans at ANZ Arena, Li Tu and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[202202,186416,99,428],"class_list":["post-424540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-james-mccabe","tag-news-article","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424540","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=424540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}