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Trusty Davis Cup old hand Alex de Minaur and late-blooming new boy Aleksandar Vukic have put Australia well on the road to victory in their first-round qualifying tie against Sweden in Stockholm.
World No 8 de Minaur, in his first outing since his Australian Open quarter-final drubbing by Jannik Sinner, had to subdue comeback man Mikael Ymer before running away to a 7-5, 6-1 victory on Friday (Saturday AEDT).
Then Vukic, thrilled to be making his bow in the ‘World Cup of men’s tennis’ at 28, marked his introduction by beating 21-year-old Leo Borg, son of Swedish great Bjorn Borg, 6-4, 6-4.
The 2-0 lead after the first of two days in the best-of-five-rubber tie leaves Lleyton Hewitt’s team poised to seal their second-round place with Olympic champs John Peers and Matt Ebden big favourites to beat Filip Bergevi and Andre Goransson in Saturday’s (Sunday morning AEDT) doubles.
De Minaur’s 16th Davis Cup singles win gave the injury-ravaged side the ideal lift-off, silencing the noisy full house in the Swedish capital’s Royal Tennis Hall.
“It was a competitive match, a very tough match. Mikael played well, I knew he was going to be a very tough opponent, so I’m very happy I got the win for Australia,” de Minaur told the crowd, which included his mum Esther and a bunch of noisy travelling ‘Dundees’.
It ended up a straightforward win for ‘Demon’ on the quick indoor hard court but he had his hands full early on with Ymer, a former top-50 player who’s returning after serving an 18-month ban for an anti-doping violation and was coming off an ITF tournament triumph last week in Luxembourg.
The 26-year-old matched de Minaur shot for shot in the opening set - one rally won by the Australian went on for 41 strokes - with neither man earning even the sniff of a break in the first 10 games.
But de Minaur stepped up perfectly, reeling off eight straight points with relentless deep hitting to take the 51-minute set and two more points immediately at the start of the second to set up another break.
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De Minaur then went on to make it six games in a row and reel off the victory against his tiring opponent in one hour 27 minutes.
All home hopes were then on the lad with the famous name, but young Borg, whose father won the Davis Cup 50 years ago this year, was no match for world No 66 Vukic, ranked over 400 places higher on the ATP computer.
Though Borg broke back to level in the first set at 3-3, Vukic, who landed his place in the team after his terrific Australian Open run made him the obvious replacement after injuries to Nick Kyrgios, Jordan Thompson and Thanasi Kokkinakis, immediately lifted to break to love and control the opening stanza.
World No 484 Borg continued to be doughty, earning three break points for a 5-4 lead in the second, but Vukic raised his level whenever danger loomed, helped by 10 aces. Breaking for 5-4, he had to repel another fightback from Borg until finally sealing the deal on his second match point.
“Leo’s a very good player. He made it very tough, and it’s always tough to play in front of the opponent’s home crowd. A match that I’m very happy to win,” smiled Vukic. “Alex did a great job before me, and hopefully we’ll just get some rest and recovery before the doubles guys try to do their thing.”
