United Cup: Demon De Minaur leads Australia to double win over Czechia to reach Quarter-Finals

Alex de Minaur again led from the front as he won two matches to seal Australia's progression to the Quarter-Finals of the United Cup. He pulled double duty to send Australia past Czechia winning the decisive doubles.

It was an uphill battle for Australia who looked potentially set for an early exit after Barbora Krejcikova dispatched Maya Joint in straight sets. De Minaur fed off a lively Ken Rosewall Arena though to see off Jakub Mensik 6-4, 6-1 before teaming with Storm Hunter to overcome Miriam Skoch and Dalibor Svrcina.

A Czech side that albeit has Krejcikova is missing Siniakova and also Muchova, both are playing elsewhere this week with Muchova winning in Brisbane just as the Czech side lost.

Czechia though have moved through despite that as Krejcikova's opening win over Maya Joint who has had a pretty poor week in regards to making a long awaited debut which was basically expunged due to the fact that she has been ill. She didn't play her first game and lost to Krejcikova in straight sets but Hunter and De Minaur brought the energy.

“The atmosphere was unbelievable. Saturday night was incredible and tonight you delivered again,” Hunter said on court. “Demon brings energy, he’s so clutch under pressure. So I felt really comfortable and confident with him by my side.”

“I didn’t start the year the way I wanted to,” said De Minaur who lost his group opener to Casper Ruud. “But something I’ve done really well in my career is bouncing back, so I’m happy I bounced back today.”

De Minaur bounced back in style during his opener. Mensik produced moments of flair early in the second set with a superb front-facing tweener volley but the Australian managed to banish the moves to move through the gears. He saved all four break points he faced en route to taking down the Czech ace to increase his Head to Head to 5-0. De Minaur fell to Ruud in his opening group match but has steadied the ship.

While it was good to see Krejcikova continue her strong start to the 2026 season. She missed the first five months of the 2025 season and now sits outside the world's top 60 but as ever this is a slight anomaly as of course she way outranks where she currently is. She jumped out to a 4-1 lead against Joint and although Joint narrowed the gap down to 4-3, Krejcikova held firm to close out the opening set 6-4 and ran away with the victory. She won the second easily 6-1 to give Czech Republic the early lead and although it wasn't a winning effort, she will know she made sure of a Quarter-Final spot for her nation which is what matters in reality.