{"id":26866,"date":"2025-06-12T10:56:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T00:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/?p=26866"},"modified":"2025-06-12T10:56:53","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T00:56:53","slug":"alex-de-minaur-leads-aussie-charge-as-davis-cup-returns-to-sydney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/news\/2025\/06\/12\/alex-de-minaur-leads-aussie-charge-as-davis-cup-returns-to-sydney","title":{"rendered":"Alex de Minaur leads Aussie charge as Davis Cup returns to Sydney"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>World No.10 Alex de Minaur will headline the Culture Amp Australian Davis Cup team as they take on Belgium in a crucial second-round Qualifier from 13-14 September.<\/p>\n<p>Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney will host Australia\u2019s first home Davis Cup tie in more than three years and it\u2019s the 20th time the Harbour City has hosted the prestigious event.<\/p>\n<p>The tie will be played on hard court, with two singles matches on Saturday, followed by doubles and reverse singles on Sunday. Play will begin at 1pm each day.<\/p>\n<p>Australia, currently ranked No.2 in the world, is chasing a fourth consecutive appearance at the Davis Cup Final 8, this year held in Bologna in November.<\/p>\n<p>In February, Australia defeated Sweden 3-1 to reach this stage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to playing in Sydney, it\u2019s no secret Ken Rosewall Arena is my favourite court,\u201d De Minaur said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have some amazing memories competing there. And to be back in Australia in September is going to be a lot of fun.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe haven\u2019t played Davis Cup at home since 2022, so it means a lot. We are hungry as ever to qualify again for the finals and really give it everything.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not often we get to be home at that time of year, and any chance to represent the green and gold is special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Australian Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt, who will lead his 34<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0tie, is eager to return to home soil.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really exciting to be back with the team in Sydney for Davis Cup in September,\u201d Hewitt said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will be led by our No.1 Alex de Minaur, who\u2019s showing us why he\u2019s one of the world\u2019s best.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur focus is on getting through and giving ourselves the opportunity to move through to the Final 8 in Italy, so I\u2019m asking the fans to come and pack out Ken Rosewall Arena in September to support us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Australia leads Belgium 4-3 in the head-to-head series, including a 3-0 win in Hamburg during the group stage in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis tie against Belgium isn\u2019t going to be easy. They are a quality team, and they did really well against Chile in February,\u201d Hewitt added.<\/p>\n<p>The full team line-up will be confirmed in mid-August.<\/p>\n<h6>Australia at the Davis Cup: Fast facts<\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li>The Davis Cup Qualifiers Second Round will take place between 12-14 September.<\/li>\n<li>Fourteen nations will compete in seven home-or-away ties.<\/li>\n<li>Australia and Belgium join the Netherlands, Argentina, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Japan, USA, Czechia, Denmark, Spain, Croatia and France.<\/li>\n<li>Seven countries will join 2024 champions Italy at the Davis Cup Final 8 to be held in Bologna, Italy from 18-23 November.<\/li>\n<li>Ties will be played as best-of-five matches, with two singles matches on day one, followed by the doubles match and the two reverse singles matches on day two. All matches are played as best-of-three tie break sets.<\/li>\n<li>This will be the 20th Davis Cup tie held in Sydney, Australia.<\/li>\n<li>The last time Davis Cup tennis was held at Ken Rosewall Arena was in March 2022 when Australia defeated Hungary 3-2.<\/li>\n<li>Australia is currently second in the Davis Cup rankings.<\/li>\n<li>Australia has finished Davis Cup runners-up twice in the last three years, in 2022 and 2023.<\/li>\n<li>Australia has won the Davis Cup title 28 times.<\/li>\n<li>Lleyton Hewitt,\u00a0Mark Philippoussis,\u00a0Todd Woodbridge,\u00a0Wayne Arthurs\u00a0and captain\u00a0John Fitzgerald\u00a0last led Australia to victory in 2003 with a 3-1 win over Spain at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.<\/li>\n<li>Davis Cup began in 1900 as a competition between USA and Great Britain. It is now the world\u2019s largest annual international team competition in sport with a record 159 nations entered in 2025.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><em>Tickets to the Davis Cup will go on sale from 2pm AEST Tuesday 15 July via Ticketmaster.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World No.10 Alex de Minaur will headline the Culture Amp Australian Davis Cup team as they take on Belgium in a crucial second-round Qualifier from 13-14 September. Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney will host Australia\u2019s first home Davis Cup tie in more than three years and it\u2019s the 20th time the Harbour City has hosted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6323,"featured_media":26867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}