Australia has been eliminated from the United Cup, despite Alex de Minaur winning both his singles and mixed doubles matches in a 2-1 defeat of Great Britain.
De Minaur’s fiancée Katie Boulter starred for Great Britain, crushing Olivia Gadecki 6-2, 6-1 in the opening singles match to leave Australia on the brink at Sydney’s Ken Rosewall Arena.Brilliant Birrell’s injury hell adds perspective to superb victory over Navarro
Photo shows Kim Birrell smiles and clenches her fist
Kim Birrell missed out on a wild card for this year’s Australian Open. Her second career win over a top 10 opponent, beating Emma Navarro, shows her that she can qualify outright.
Australia had entered Wednesday night’s tie needing to win 3-0 to top Group F and secure a path to the quarterfinals.
Instead, Great Britain automatically advanced following Boulter’s one-sided victory.
A 2-1 triumph could still have been enough for the tournament hosts to progress as the best runners-up out of Sydney, but only if Australia dropped a total of no more than seven games in the men’s singles and mixed doubles.
De Minaur lived up to his end of the bargain by defeating Billy Harris 6-2, 6-1.
His spirited display left Australia needing to win the deciding mixed doubles without dropping any more than four games to edge out Czechia for a last-eight spot in the Australian Open tune-up event.
Boulter had featured in Great Britain’s mixed doubles win over Argentina on Monday, but the world number 24 was replaced Olivia Nicholls.
While Boulter rested up, de Minaur happily answered Australia captain Lleyton Hewitt’s call to step up after Paris Olympics gold medallist Matt Ebden and Ellen Perez surprisingly lost to Argentine pair Maria Lourdes Carle and Tomas Etcheverry on Saturday.
After taking the first set 6-3 against Nicholls and Charles Broom, de Minaur and Gadecki were unable to deny their opponents more than one game as required to advance.
They had to settle for a 6-3, 7-6 (7/3) win to seal the tie.
Great Britain will play Poland in the Sydney quarterfinals, while Czechia will meet Italy.
