No Kyrgios so de Minaur to lead Cup tilt
NICK Kyrgios won’t be reuniting with doubles partner Thanasi Kokkinakis or playing singles when Australia features in next month’s Davis Cup quarter-final showdown with the Netherlands after electing not to join the team again.
Instead, world No.24 Alex de Minaur will pilot a team that includes Kokkinakis and doubles specialists Matt Ebden and Max Purcell in flying the Australian flag in Spain.
Wimbledon finalist and world no.20 Kyrgios hasn’t played Davis Cup since 2019 and Australian captain Lleyton Hewitt said the players he picked had made “a lot of sacri
fices” to give the team what he called a “massive opportunity” to lift the Davis Cup trophy.
“Alex (de Minaur) has had a fantastic Davis Cup record this year. He’s played some of his best tennis in Davis Cup,” He
witt said. “He’s gone from strength to strength in this competition over the last few years and he’s going to help lead us again in our quarterfinal match against the Netherlands.
“Thanasi Kokkinakis did everything that we asked of him in Sydney earlier in the year against Hungary to get us into the group stage of the Davis Cup finals.
“He was able to win that clincher for us in the fifth rubber, which was massive against (Zsombor) Piros. And then played really well in his last match in Hamburg against Germany, winning that match in the No.1 singles slot.”
It’s the third year in a row Australia has reached the Davis Cup finals.
The winner of the tie will play the winner of Croatia versus Spain in the semi-finals, with the US, Italy, Canada and Germany on the other side of the draw.