Alex de Minaur has become one of the most fearsome opponents for any player to face at the United Cup.

The Australian showed as much Saturday evening when he defeated Tomas Martin Etcheverry 6-1, 6-4 to level his country’s tie with Argentina at 1-1. Earlier, 2020 Roland Garros semifinalist Nadia Podoroska fought through her season opener to give Argentina a 1-0 lead. Podoroska opened the tie with a tidy 6-2, 6-4 win over Olivia Gadecki.

The mixed doubles will decide which country improves to 1-0 in Group F action.

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“I think just being back here in Sydney [helped]. I love it here,” De Minaur said. “I love playing here. I get to play in front of friends, family and in front of my home crowd, so what better way to start the new season?”

De Minaur is now 5-2 in singles at the United Cup. In 2023 he defeated Rafael Nadal at the event and in the 2024 edition the Aussie earned victories against three Top 10 opponents, including Novak Djokovic.

The win served as a measure of revenge for De Minaur. Etcheverry entered the clash with a 1-0 lead in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series thanks to a straight-sets triumph at Roland Garros in 2023.

De Minaur was undeterred by that defeat, using his backhand down the line to great effect in critical moments and winning 88 per cent of his first-serve points according to Infosys ATP Stats. He did not face a break point.

“I’ve been putting some great work in in the preseason,” De Minaur said. “I felt comfortable with the way I was playing before the tournament, so I just told myself to back myself and play the type of tennis I wanted to play.”

Ranked No.100 on the PIF WTA Rankings, Podoroska did her best to silence the partisan home crowd in the opening rubber by breaking the 97th-ranked Gadecki in her first service game. The 27-year-old stayed perfect on serve before engineering a second break to lead 5-2 before serving out the set. 

Gadecki, 22, bounced back early in the second set. The Queenslander made her Top 100 debut in September after a rousing run to her first Hologic WTA Tour final at the Guadalajara Open Akron. The breakthrough came a month after she made her first ITF 100K final in Landisville. 

After being broken to fall behind 2-1 in the second set, Gadecki steeled herself to earn her first break-point chance of the night and converted to level at 2-2. Another exchange of breaks took the set to 4-4 before Podoroska sealed the final break of the night to lead 5-4 and served out the win. In all, Podoroska earned 7 break point chances against the Gadecki serve, breaking five times. Gadecki saw just three break chances.

“I think I played very consistent the whole match,” Podoroska said on court. “Even when I missed some serves I keep doing my game. It’s very important to do that.”

More to come…