De Minaur & Kyrgios Win Deciding Doubles To Reach Semis Of The ATP Cup

Alex de Minaur and Nick Kyrgios saved four match points to defeat Jamie Murray and Joe Salisbury 3-6, 6-3, 18-16 on Thursday afternoon, giving Australia a 2-1 victory against Great Britain and sending their country to the semi-finals of the inaugural ATP Cup.

After Salisbury missed a backhand return on Australia’s fifth match point, the Brits challenged whether the serve landed on the service line. And once confirmed, De Minaur and Kyrgios fell onto the court in an embrace, before getting up to shake hands. Kyrgios then quickly lifted De Minaur onto his shoulders and paraded around in celebration as the Ken Rosewall Arena crowd erupted for their countrymen.

The Aussie victory completed a wild tie to open Final Eight play in Sydney. Daniel Evans beat De Minaur in the No. 1 singles match after three hours and 24 minutes, winning a final-set tie-break to level the tie and force a deciding doubles match.

Australian captain Lleyton Hewitt made a bold decision to change his doubles line-up, replacing two-time Nitto ATP Finals champion John Peers and five-time ATP Tour doubles titlist Chris Guccione, who won all three of their Group F matches, with De Minaur and Kyrgios. That switch paid dividends for Hewitt and the Aussies.

As expected, the crowd was fully behind the Australians, roaring after nearly every point won. De Minaur and Kyrgios also leapt into chest bumps several times throughout the match, giving every ounce of physical and emotional energy they had, with Hewitt and countryman John Millman among those in the Australian Team Zone consistently taking a couple of steps out of that zone to motivate the Aussies.

Former doubles World No. 1 Murray and 2019 Nitto ATP Finals doubles qualifier Salisbury had the edge in doubles experience. But it was the Brits who succumbed under pressure, with Murray missing a backhand groundstroke on top of the net on one of Great Britain’s match points.

De Minaur and Kyrgios hit some incredible returns under pressure, hitting back-to-back backhand return winners up the line past the net man late in the Match Tie-break to set up the match point that the Aussies converted.

And while the Brits did well throughout the match to put themselves in strong positions to swat away volleys at net, the dynamic Aussies unleashed some powerful and heavy groundstrokes in key moments to make life difficult for Murray and Salisbury.

Australia will play Belgium or Spain on Saturday evening.