Dart is right on target to seal win over hosts
Harriet Dart secured victory for Great Britain in their opening United Cup clash with hosts australia in Sydney. Britain led 2-0 overnight at the inaugural mixed international team competition after wins for Cameron Norrie and Katie Swan, meaning they needed one victory from the three matches yesterday to clinch the win.
that arrived in the first match as Dart defeated Maddison inglis 6-4, 6-4.
Dart, the British No1 in the absence of emma raducanu, who chose to skip the event, would have expected a rematch against australian No1 ajla tomljanovic, who she defeated at the Billie Jean King Cup last month.
But tomljanovic was a late withdrawal with a knee injury and Dart made no mistake against 180th-ranked inglis.
‘Maddy played really great tennis today and i had to work for it,’ Dart said on unitedcup.com. ‘First match of the year, i was really nervous, but the crowd were great.’
australia came out on top in the final two rubbers, with Jason Kubler repeating his Wimbledon upset of Dan evans.
evans looked certain to force a decider when he led 5-0 in the second set but Kubler staged an impressive fightback to win 6-3, 7-6 (7-3).
John Peers and Sam Stosur then clinched a 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 victory over Dart and Scotland’s Jonny O’Mara in the mixed doubles.
Britain can clinch a spot in the semi-finals with victory against Spain over the weekend but they go in as underdogs given their opponents boast three top-20 players in rafael Nadal, Pablo Carreno Busta and Paula Badosa.
in the other ties there were victories for Greece, USa, italy, France and Switzerland.
Meanwhile, Nick Kyrgios has accused australia co-captain Lleyton Hewitt of ‘throwing him under the bus’ after he withdrew from the United Cup to be in good shape for the australian Open.
Hewitt said he was unaware of Kyrgios’ withdrawal and was frustrated at the ‘lack of communication’.
after Kyrgios’ former girlfriend tomljanovic also pulled out yesterday, the
Wimbledon finalist tweeted to question whether she would receive the same treatment.
‘Mmm i wonder if Sam Stosur (australia’s co-captain) will throw her under the bus like our captain did for me... hard to prepare when you don’t know what’s going on,’ he wrote.
Kyrgios trained on the courts at Sydney Olympic Park on tuesday to test out his injured ankle and he said he informed tennis australia chief executive Craig tiley and United Cup tournament director Stephen Farrow of his potential withdrawal before it was made official.
For their part, both tiley and Farrow have defended Kyrgios, insisting there were no reasons to doubt his ankle issue was a genuine injury.
‘We all worked together to try and get the best outcome,’ Kyrgios said on thursday. ‘Not everyone is going to understand or see it from my side and that is okay.
‘What my team and i can control is how we go about our business and make sure who needs to know, knows — and we leave it at that.’