Kokkinakis Proves his Selection
Thanasi Kokkinakis was not a man who had plans of Davis Cup participation for much of the year. It wasn’t until Aussie number one Alex de Minaur was forced to withdraw from this year’s tournament due to his nagging hip injury that Kokkinakis was sprung into the team.
As such, his role on the team was not expected to be a large one, however captain Lleyton Hewitt had other plans.
Hewitt picked the experienced Kokkinakis over much higher ranked teammate Jordan Thompson to take on the singles duty in the group stage alongside Alexei Popyrin.
In return for the trust of his coach, Kokkinakis has delivered back-to-back victories leading Australia to a 2-0 group stage thus far.
The first matchup for Australia was France. Kokkinakis was picked to play the first match of the tie against youngster and 25th ranked Arthur Fils.
It was an extremely tightly fought match with just two service breaks in total, split one apiece.
The opening set was dominated by the server. Each men had five aces and won over 85% of their first serve points. As such, the set went to a tiebreak.
In the tiebreak the Aussie was able to buckle down and find a pair of mini breaks, leading to a 7-4 victory.
The second set ended in similar fashion as this time the pair exchanged breaks before heading into the tiebreaker.
Kokkinakis again raised his level and won 7-3, claiming the match victory 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-3).
Two days later against Czechia, Kokkinakis faced Jakub Mensik. In this match the servers weren’t nearly as invincible.
Kokkinakis broke his opponent twice in the opening set, rolling to a 6-2 win. Mensik found his footing in the second set as each man surrendered a break en route to a tiebreaker.
Mensik dominated the breaker, forcing a third and deciding set.
Kokkinakis served brilliantly in the final set not allowing a single break point opportunity while claiming one break of his own to win the set 6-3 and the match 6-2, 6-7 (2-7), 6-3.
Ebden and Purcell Dominate
The highly touted doubles team of Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell have performed brilliantly for Australia thus far.
First against France, they played the heroes after Alexei Popyrin’s loss to Ugo Humbert left the matchup at 1-1.
It took them three tough sets, but eventually they were able to defeat the French duo of Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Edouard Roger-Vasselin.
They found a late break up 6-5 in the opening set to take it 7-5 before the Frenchmen returned the favour in the third set to win that 7-5 and knot the match at 1-1.
In the decider Ebden and Purcell claimed an early break to win the set 6-3.
Against Czechia their talents were not as needed after Kokkinakis’ win and Popyrin’s victory due to an unfortunate retirement from Tomas Machac.
Still, they put their best foot forward and won the match handily 6-4, 6-2.
2-0 Aussies Face Unique challenge with Spain
With their opening victories, Australia is all but assured a spot in the Final 8. Their last group stage match will be a good tune-up however facing hosts Spain.
Not only will they have the crowd at the backs of their opponents, but Spain also has world no.3 Carlos Alcaraz who will be heavily favoured against whichever Australian he faces.
The second singles match and the doubles battle may once again prove to be the difference as Australia looks to make it a clean sweep through the group.
Australia have gotten off to a brilliant start in their Davis Cup group winning their opening two matchups. Late substitute Thanasi Kokkinakis has proved to be more than reliable with a 2-0 record as the Aussies look ahead towards Spain.
