Great Britain suffer 2-1 defeat to hosts Australia in dramatic ATP Cup quarter-final in Sydney
Thursday 9 January 2020 18:28, UK
Jamie Murray and Joe Salisbury suffered a heartbreaking 18-16 super tie-break defeat to Nick Kyrgios and Alex de Minaur as Great Britain went down 2-1 to Australia in the ATP Cup quarter-finals on Thursday.
Jamie Murray and Salisbury saw four match points come and go before the Aussie paring of Kyrgios and De Minaur came through 3-6 6-3 18-16 to send the hosts through to the semi-finals.
Cam Norrie lost the first quarter-final match, going down 6-2 6-2 to Kyrgios before Dan Evans kept Britain in the tournament courtesy of a thrilling 7-6 (7-4) 4-6 7-6 (7-2) win over De Minaur in three hours and 23 minutes.
That result ended Australia's record of winning all 10 of their previous matches in the inaugural 24-team tournament.
Australian captain Lleyton Hewitt gambled on sending his two singles players back out for the decisive doubles in De Minaur and Kyrgios instead of Chris Guccione and John Peers, who were unbeaten in three matches in the group stage.
But it paid off after a seesaw match, they sealed victory in a gripping match tie-breaker.
Kyrgios served at 17-16 and Salisbury returned long, but before the win could be given the British challenged whether the world No 29's serve had gone in.
The review showed it clearly had and the unlikely pair fell to the ground.
<br/>Interviewed on court, De Minaur said Kyrgios "blatantly carried me out there", but Kyrgios disagreed.<br/> <br/>"Not at all, he just needs a bit of guidance," said the 24-year-old. "He just gets pretty down on himself really easily so I keep him positive if I can, especially after his unbelievable singles performance, he just came up a bit short.<br/> <br/>"I just brought as much energy as I could. That was probably the most stressful tie-break I've ever played in my life so I'll probably have a bit of red wine tonight."
Australia will play either Rafael Nadal's Spain or Belgium in the semi-finals.
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