It is winner-takes-all on Wednesday evening inside Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney. The victor between Argentina and Croatia will top Group E and advance to the Final Eight of the inaugural ATP Cup, while the country that falls short will be eliminated.

Lefty Guido Pella certainly got Argentina off to a strong start. He defeated former World No. 3 Marin Cilic 7-6(1), 6-3 in one hour and 53 minutes to give his country a 1-0 lead. The 2019 Sao Paulo champion held strong behind his second serve, winning 60 per cent of those points, en route to his triumph.

“Ole! Ole Ole Ole! Guido! Guido!”

Those chants rang out through the Sydney night from early on in the match. Fans lined up early on the grounds of the Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre, with Argentine fans walking around playing the drums and trumpets, as Croats waved their country’s flag and wore Croatian apparel. The atmosphere was what the ATP Cup is all about.

Pella played consistent tennis throughout, forcing Cilic to come up with special shots, putting pressure on the Croat. And Cilic, who has the ability to take the racquet out of almost every player’s hands, made an abundance of unforced errors.

Both men did well facing break points — Cilic saved five of seven chances and Pella staved off five of six — but that one additional break was plenty for the Argentine.

Pella now leads Cilic 3-1 in their ATP Head2Head series, winning three consecutive matches in their rivalry. At 2018 Wimbledon, Pella came from two sets down to upset the Croat.

Diego Schwartzman will now try to close out the tie for Argentina, qualifying for the Final Eight. Schwartzman faces Borna Coric, against whom he has lost two of three meetings.

Hubert Hurkacz upset World No. 4 Dominic Thiem 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(5) on Wednesday in Sydney to clinch Poland’s first tie victory at the inaugural ATP Cup. 

Austria was clinging to its hopes of winning Group E and advancing to the Final Eight. But with Hurkacz’s win, Austria is eliminated from the competition, and the winner of tonight’s clash in Sydney between Argentina and Croatia will top the group and reach the Final Eight.

It has been a successful singles week for Hurkacz in Sydney, going 3-0 with all of his opponents ranked inside the Top 30 of the FedEx ATP Rankings. The 22-year-old also defeated Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman and Croatia’s Borna Coric. Hurkacz now leads Thiem 2-0 in their ATP Head2Head series, having defeated the Austrian in Miami last year.

Earlier in the day, Kacper Zuk became the lowest-ranked singles player to win a match at the ATP Cup, as the World No. 448 rallied past Dennis Novak 5-7, 7-6(3), 6-3 to give Poland a 1-0 lead. 

Zuk battled hard against former World No. 3 Marin Cilic on Monday, pushing the Croat to a tie-break in the first set. But while he did not get through that match, he wouldn’t be denied again.

The #NextGenATP player saved nine of the 13 break points he faced to triumph after two hours and 33 minutes. The Pole showed no nerves as he served out the match, attacking the Austrian relentlessly with his forehand on match point until Novak shoveled a backhand passing shot wide.

Rafael Nadal secured Team Spain’s spot in the Fight Eight as Group B winners on Wednesday at the ATP Cup, but he was made to work extremely hard for the tie victory against Team Japan.

Tennis fans turned out in force at the RAC Arena, to witness the World No. 1 twice recover a break deficit in the first set, before overcoming Yoshihito Nishioka 7-6(4), 6-4 in a tremendous battle over two hours and eight minutes in Perth.

Earlier in the day, World No. 9 Roberto Bautista Agut also extended his winning start to the 2020 ATP Tour season with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Go Soeda in the first singles rubber.

Nadal, Bautista Agut, Pablo Carreno Busta, Albert Ramos-Vinolas, Feliciano Lopez and captain Francisco Roig will now travel to Sydney, where Spain will prepare to play a tie during Friday’s night session.

Japan, with a 2-1 ties record in Group B, must now win the doubles match in order to remain in contention for the Final Eight as one of the best second-placed teams.

Nishioka insisted he was confident in facing Nadal two days prior to the tie, with memories of beating Kei Nishikori at the Western & Southern Open in August last year. However, a player needs to produce on the day. Nishioka did and forced Nadal to draw upon his big-match experience.

World No. 72 Nishioka was the first to break serve at 2-2 in the first set, but Nadal responded. At 4-4, a double fault and backhand wide from Nadal handed Nishioka the opportunity to serve for the set, but Nadal again broke back during a run of eight straight points. In the tie-break, Nadal applied the pressure, putting a lot of work on the ball to win four of the first five points en route to clinching the 66-minute opener.

Undeterred, Nishioka continued to earn the support of the largely pro-Spain crowd. Nadal’s weight of shot didn’t appear to physically wear down the Japanese, as it had so many opponents, and, having saved one break point at 2-2, Nishioka came within a point of a 4-2 lead on three occasions. Nadal raised his game and broke to 15, with a forehand approach winner, for a 5-4 advantage, and minutes later completed his third singles win of the inaugural tournament.

After the match, in an on-court ceremony, Nadal was presented with the 2019 Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award for the third time (also 2010 and 2018).

In the first singles match, Bautista Agut methodically broke down Soeda’s game. The World No. 9 extended his winning start to the 2020 ATP Tour season with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Soeda, who’d won his two previous singles matches, in 79 minutes.

“Today was, I think, the most difficult match,” said Bautista Agut. “I think it was also the first match with the sun, with the heat. The ball felt much different, flying more and the court was faster. I had more difficulties today, and I think I handled it well.”

Soeda’s opportunity for a win was fleeting when leading Bautista Agut 2-1, with the Spaniard serving at 0/30, courtesy of a fine backhand volley winner at close quarters. But from that moment on, Bautista Agut won 21 of the next 28 points to clinch the 32-minute opener and decisively broke serve in a 12-point fifth game of the second set.

“I had a feeling [it was a big moment], but at that moment I needed more be cool,” said Soeda. “He looks like he has no weapons, but he was everywhere. He’s fast and makes no mistakes. I was feeling the pressure… but it was a different type of nerves from the first two matches I played.”

Japan had beaten Georgia and Uruguay in its two previous Group B ties.

Dusan Lajovic on Wednesday put Serbia within a match win of finishing group play at the ATP Cup unbeaten. The country’s No. 2 singles player beat Chile’s Nicolas Jarry 6-2, 7-6(3) to conclude his Group A singles matches with a 2-1 record.

Lajovic won 56 per cent of Jarry’s second-serve points and broke three times for the 94-minute win.

Serbia is looking to start 3-0 at the inaugural ATP Cup, being played in Brisbane, Perth and Sydney. The tournament moves exclusively to Sydney on Thursday for the Final Eight. Serbia will compete in the Final Eight on Friday against a to be determined opponent.

Former World No. 1 Thomas Muster is using all the tools at his disposal as the captain of Team Austria at the ATP Cup. One of those tools is an innovation at the inaugural 24-country event: the Strategy Room.

“You don’t have that all the time. Once you have the technology, you must use it, because the guys, sometimes they play and they don’t understand why something happened,” Muster said. “Because you’re playing, you’re tense, you’re tight, you’re focussing on different things and you lose track of a few things and then you sit down, not right after the match, but the next day when everybody calms down in the cool atmosphere.”

Muster isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel in the Strategy Room. Instead, the 44-time tour-level titlist, who tends to lead the discussion for his country, looks back at some mistakes his players might have made to help them work on those things in practice.

“You just tell the players, ‘Look, these are the things that I think you should work on. You’re in the wrong position here, you should be further in or you should be doing this or that,’” Muster said. “Most of the time they come and say, ‘Oh, geez, I didn’t know I’m doing this. Now I can see much clearer.’

“You do that before practice because that shows the guys before what they can work on and most of the time we go out like an hour later and straight away start to work on those skills and also the mistakes they’re making. A lot of the time they’re very motivated to do that, so it’s just a very good opportunity.”

Austria must defeat Poland 3-0 to have a chance to win Group E and automatically qualify for the Final Eight. In that scenario, Argentina would need to beat Croatia 3-0.

Top seed Stan Wawrinka enjoyed a strong start in his first singles match of the 2020 ATP Tour season, defeating Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-3, 6-4 on Tuesday at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha.

Wawrinka, who also teamed up with Frances Tiafoe for a first-round win Monday in doubles, saved six of seven break points faced on serve while capitalising on three of his nine opportunities for the 87-minute victory. He improved to a perfect 7-0 record against Chardy.

“I’m really happy with the first match of the season after a few months without playing matches,” said Wawrinka, the 2008 Doha finalist. “I think the level was good. I was really focussed, moving well also.”

“I’m happy to be still playing at good level,” he said. “I’m happy to be here for another year and hopefully a good one for me.”

Wawrinka will next meet Aljaz Bedene, who advanced to the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Alexander Bublik. Wawrinka and Bedene will be facing off for a fifth time, and for a fourth time in the opening week of the season. They met three straight years in Chennai, splitting their first two meetings in the 2013-14 quarter-finals before Wawrinka triumphed in the 2015 final.

In first-round action Tuesday, eighth-seeded American Tiafoe succumbed to Hungarian qualifier Marton Fucsovics 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. Fifth seed Laslo Djere closed out a 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 victory over Italian Lorenzo Sonego, and Turkish wild card Cem Ilkel defeated Ricardas Berankis 6-2, 4-6, 6-2.