Australia defeated Great Britain 2-1 on Wednesday evening at the United Cup in Sydney, but Great Britain is through to the quarter-finals.
All three countries in Group F — Great Britain, Australia and Argentina — finished with a 1-1 record and each won three matches, but Great Britain claimed top spot by winning the greatest percentage of sets, and Australia and Argentina were eliminated.
Great Britain will take on Poland Thursday evening and the best second-placed team, Czechia, will face Italy on Friday.
Australian Alex de Minaur earned a resounding 6-2, 6-1 win against Briton Billy Harris to send the tie to a deciding match and keep his country's hopes of qualification as the best second-placed country in Sydney alive. But De Minaur and Olivia Gadecki did not beat Charles Broom and Olivia Nicholls by a wide enough margin to claim the quarter-final spot, earned by Czechia.
Even so, De Minaur and Gadecki triumphed 6-3, 7-6(3) to end the group stage on a high.
“It was great. I enjoyed every second we had here on this Sydney court,” De Minaur said. “I enjoyed playing mixed with Liv a lot. It was a lot of fun, great atmosphere, thank you guys. We did our best. As I said, always a pleasure to play at home.”
Gadecki said: “I’m so glad I got to share the court with Alex tonight. It was such a pleasure and I knew I had to step up.”
De Minaur thrilled the crowd inside Ken Rosewall Arena, where he won his first ATP Tour title in 2019, throughout the evening. The home favourite needed just 77 minutes to defeat Harris in their first Lexus ATPHead2Head meeting.
"No other place I would rather be than right here, right now with you guys," De Minaur told the fans in his on-court comments.
The No. 9 player in the PIF ATP Rankings kept Australia's qualification dreams alive. When De Minaur's fiancée, Katie Boulter, won her match in straight sets earlier in the evening, she guaranteed Great Britain would win Group F.
Photo: Brett Hemmings/Getty Images
Boulter delivered an early 1-0 lead over Australia, racing past Gadecki 6-2, 6-1.
"I've been trying to avoid all the stats on all this but we were at dinner with Laura Robson last night and she thankfully told me I had to win in straight sets," Boulter said. "So I was feeling the pressure from last night, so really appreciate that, Laura."
Boulter dominated Gadecki from the outset, showing superior consistency and depth from the baseline, needing just 70 minutes to secure the victory. She broke Gadecki straight out of the gate and saved the sole break point she faced to cruise through the finish.
"Very happy to start my new year like that," Boulter said. "I feel like I've lost a lot of sleep recently over the thought of playing my fiancé in doubles so I'm so tired. I'm just so happy to get through this rubber, I'm not going to lie."
