Poland advances to United Cup city final
Murray Wenzel and Justin Chadwick |
Hubert Hurkacz and Magda Linette have piloted Poland into Brisbane’s United Cup city final with impressive singles wins against Switzerland.
World No.10 Hurkacz downed three-time grand slam winner Stan Wawrinka 7-6 (7-5) 6-4 victory before Linette gave Poland an unassailable 3-1 lead with a plucky 5-7 6-4 6-1 triumph over the higher-ranked Jil Teichmann on Tuesday night.
That rendered Switzerland’s subsequent doubles win irrelevant.
With victory, Poland topped Group B and will face Group E winners Italy on Wednesday in effectively Brisbane’s quarter-final.
In the Perth final Greece will play Croatia after defeating Belgium and France respectively.
Hurkacz sent down 11 aces and didn’t commit a single double fault against Wawrinka.
“I’ve never had a chance before to play against Stan, so I was really looking forward to the match,” Hurkacz said.
“I was watching him winning grand slams, so it was a huge pleasure for me to play him.”
With women’s world No.1 Iga Swiatek also at their disposal, Poland will take plenty of stopping in the knockout stages of the inaugural mixed teams’ tournament.
Earlier, Matteo Berrettini beat world No.3 Casper Ruud to book Italy’s spot in the Brisbane final.
The world No.16, who lost in the semi-finals of last year’s Australian Open to eventual champion Rafael Nadal, used his powerful serve to dominate the Norwegian 6-4 6-4.
Berrettini hit 10 aces and won 88 per cent of points (35 of 40) when landing his first serve to move to 2-0 after his tournament-opening defeat of Brazilian Thiago Monteiro.
Italy went on to win the tie 5-0.
“Casper, he’s a super-solid player, he improved so much in the past year, so I knew that I had to serve my best,” Berrettini said.
Berrettini’s victory put Italy up 3-0 against Norway, which was good enough for top spot in their group.
The winner of the Brisbane city final will travel to Sydney for semi-finals from Friday.
“The goal is to have the longest run possible. It’s super nice to play with my teammates,” Berrettini said.
“The other day at dinner we were talking about when we were 12 playing against each other. It’s super nice and I’m really happy.
“It’s the first time obviously playing with the girls and I think it’s special, different, maybe a little bit more stressful, but we’re enjoying it a lot.”
In Perth, Greece secured a city final when Maria Sakkari beat Elise Mertens to earn the final point they needed from the first of three chances in matches against Belgium.
The world No.6 won 6-1 7-5, following Stefanos Tsitsipas’s impressive dismantling of David Goffin on Monday. Greece ended with a 4-1 win.
Greece will face Croatia after an upset win by world No.144 Borna Gojo on Tuesday night.
Croatia led 2-0 after Monday’s results but world No.3 Caroline Garcia kept France’s hopes alive with a 7-6 (11-9) 6-4 win over Petra Martic. That left veteran Adrian Mannarino needing to beat Gojo, ranked 98 places below him, to send the tie into a deciding mixed doubles rubber.
That looked likely when Mannarino led 5-3 in the final set but Gojo won eight of nine points to level the set, then forced a breaker. He clinched a 7-6 (7-5) 3-6 7-6 (7-5) victory with his third match point to send Croatia through.
In Sydney, American Jessica Pegula eased past Germany’s Laura Siegemund 6-3 6-2, with the United States going on to win the tie 5-0.
The US had already booked their city final berth against Great Britain a day earlier.
AAP
