United Cup 2025: Late night heroics from Coco Gauff and Taylor Fritz seals vital opener for Team USA

The North American derby has gone the way of top seeds Team USA as Coco Gauff and Taylor Fritz sealed victory over Leylah Fernandez and Felix Auger-Aliassime in mixed doubles on Sunday going into the early hours with a 1am finish at the United Cup.

As is often the way when it comes to these tournaments, the timings are very much subject to change and are very much an ongoing theme during the tennis season where the super late finishes are an issue. This again was the case as Fritz and Gauff won 7-6, 7-5 in the early hours days into the new season.

Fritz led from the front as he made up for the poor result against Felix Auger-Aliassime handing the Canadian his best win in a long time after Gauff had put USA one up early doors with victory over Leylah Fernandez.

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But Fritz loss mattered little as they edged through in the end with the top seeds surviving. They now head into facing Croatia in a great position with Canada hoping to join them in the next round.

It also has to be a sweet revenge for the team. They narrowly lost their Olympics bronze medal match to Canada this past Summer with the tandem of Gauff and Fritz albeit facing Dabrowski who is their usual doubles player and Auger-Aliassime.

The 2023 champions are rock n rolling and are through their opener albeit they will hope that the late finish doesn't scupper their chances when they play their final match against Croatia who have a strong opening tandem in Coric and Vekic. Both of whom will hope to bounce back from the Canada loss and would mean a lot of looking at numbers in the standings to see who wins through. But the first part is done for the leading duo.

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