Australia (Commonwealth) _ Australia managed to recover from being one game away from elimination to return to the Davis Cup semifinals. Australia advanced to the round of four for the second year in a row on Wednesday after coming back from behind to overcome the Czech Republic 2-1.
The Australians survived when Alex De Minaur overcame a set and a break down, and Max Purcell and Matthew Ebden won the pivotal doubles match to set up a showdown against Finland on Friday.
The Czechs took the lead in the opening singles match thanks to Tomas Machac’s 6-4, 7-5 victory over Jordan Thompson. However, De Minaur overcame Jiri Lehecka 4-6, 7-6 (2), 7-5, and Purcell and Ebden, the 2022 Wimbledon champions, completed the comeback by winning the doubles match against Adam Pavlasek and Lehecka 6-4, 7-5.
I took great delight in having a never-say-die mentality, and Australia Captain Leyton Hewitt remarked of De Minaur, “He’s definitely in the same category.” We’re very proud of him for going out there and putting the guys on his back once more. He claimed that even though he had to go quite far, he still managed to save us.
The No. 12 in the world and top-ranked Australian, De Minaur, rallied from a 3-5 deficit in the second set to force a tiebreaker. In the decisive set, he broke serve at 5-5 and finished the match with four consecutive points.
Under the circumstances, it would have been very simple for me to give up, but the 24-year-old acknowledged that’s simply not how I play. Throughout my career, I have had a lot of matches like this. It is a component of who I am. I won’t give up on this. I will fight to the very end, he declared.
In order to be completely fit for the final eight in Malaga, Lehecka, ranked 31st in the world, completed his season early. Before finishing the match in the first singles set, Machac broke Thompson’s service twice in the first set and once more in the second, most recently at 5-5. Purcell and Ebden won the doubles match by breaking the service once in each set.
Hewitt stated, “Let’s not take what these two just did for granted.” That was an incredible effort, he added, not knowing if they would make it out here or not, riding the highs and lows of the first two games before emerging and putting on such a display.
Australia became just the second country in Davis Cup history to reach 200 tie victories, behind the United States.
Meanwhile, Finland defeated Canada, the reigning champion, 2-1 on Tuesday. Australia defeated Croatia in the round of 16 yet collapsed to Canada in the championship match last year. Thursday’s quarterfinals matchups pit Italy against the Netherlands and Novak Djokovic’s Serbia against an injured Great Britain side.
The final is scheduled on Sunday, while the second semifinal is scheduled for Saturday.
According to Djokovic, Great Britain is a formidable team in this format and one of the best tennis nations in the world. There are no doubles experts on our squad. We play mostly singles, but when it comes to doubles, he added, we’re also willing to partner up and give it our best in a variety of configurations.
On Tuesday, Finland advanced to the Davis Cup semifinals for the first time, defeating the reigning champion Canada in the process.
In the pivotal doubles match, Otto Virtanen and Hanne Heliovaara upset Alexis Galarneau and Vasek Pospisil 7-5, 6-3, to give the 14th-ranked Finns the victory over the top-seeded Canadians in the first quarterfinal in southern Spain.
The British team, led by No. 18 Cameron Norrie and No. 60 Jack Draper, will be aiming to make it to the semifinals for the first time in four years. In the doubles, Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski are scheduled to compete.
