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Home , Alex de Minaur, Davis Cup, Jason Kubler

The Australian Foundation News Celebrating the past, supporting the present and promoting the future.

Produced for Members of the Foundation ABN 90 004 905 060 November 2018

Australia goes down to 1-3 in play-off

World Group Play-Off Austria v in Graz 14-16 September, 2018. Beating Austria in Austria, led by #8 , was always going to be a hard task and thus it proved. Thiem easily accounted for Thompson in the first rubber then played the match of his life to defeat the higher rated in front of his cheering home crowd. With its back against the wall the Australian Captain, made a brave, but popular decision, to come out of retirement to partner in the doubles. Lleyton showed that he still has what it takes and was best on the court in a four set victory over Marach and Melzer. Everything hinged on the fourth rubber between Thiem and De Minaur and, at the start, it looked like following the script with Thiem winning the first two set but the Australian youngster fought back to win the third set and lead in the fourth before Thiem broke back to win the match and the tie. We were all impressed with how well Alex played, scoring 110 points to 125 points overall, against one of the best players in the world. He will surely be the backbone of a strong Australian Davis Cup team in the years ahead.

Page 1! Davis Cup 2018 The final of the 2018 Davis Cup will be held in Lille, , from November 23-25 between France and . France defeated 3-2 and Croatia defeated the USA 3-2 in the semi-finals.

Davis Cup 2019 Australia's next Davis Cup match will be a home tie against Bosnia-Herzegovina on February 1-2, 2019. Members will be advised of the venue as soon as makes the announcement.

The winner of this match will progress to the 2019 Davis Cup World Group to be played in in November 2019. Under the new format, passed at the ITF AGM in August, rubbers will now be best of 3 sets and the tie will be played over 2 days.

The ITF has announced details of the 2019 Davis Cup World Group as follows: “The Davis Cup Steering Committee has selected Madrid as the host city to stage the first two editions of the newly-transformed Davis Cup by BNP Paribas finals in 2019 and 2020.

The 2019 event will take place at the iconic La Caja Mágica, located in Madrid’s Parque Lineal del Manzanares. The venue will see the 118-year-old competition entering a new phase, welcoming 18 nations and the world’s best players to compete for the prestigious Davis Cup next year. La Caja Mágica and the WiZink Center are both under consideration to stage the event in 2020.

ITF President David Haggerty said: “We are delighted to be bringing the 2019 Davis Cup by BNP Paribas finals to Madrid. The city is a fitting location to stage the highest quality tennis and great entertainment for thousands of fans from all over the world. We look forward to working with the city to realise our ambitions of elevating the Davis Cup to a new level.”

Prior to yesterday’s 2019 Davis Cup by BNP Paribas finals Qualifier Draw, the Steering Committee also awarded two wild cards for the 2019 finals to and Great Britain, where they will be joined by the four semi-finalists of the 2018 competition – Croatia, France, Spain, USA – and the 12 winners of the 2019 Qualifiers to be held in February.

La Caja Mágica has established itself as a globally-recognised top class tennis venue. It is comprised of three main show courts while the complex around the main site also includes several indoor and outdoor courts. The WiZink Center also has extensive experience hosting major sport and entertainment events.

The Davis Cup by BNP Paribas finals will take place in a group-stage format over the first four days, with the countries divided into six groups of three teams. Each tie will consist of three matches – two singles and one doubles – of best-of-three sets.

The six group winners and the two second-placed teams with the best records will qualify for the knock- out quarter-finals. The teams placed 5th to 16th will compete in the following year’s Qualifiers, while the teams placed 17th and 18th will be relegated to their respective Zone Groups." Page 2! Bentleigh Travel Tour of Austria Prior to the Austrian Tie Ian Jane, of Bentleigh Travel, conducted a guided tour around Austria for 33 Foundation members. We started in picturesque Innsbruck then moved on to Salzburg, Vienna and finally Graz. Some highlights were watching the spectacular ski jumping in Innsbruck, visiting a brewery, a salt mine, the Tour members going to the Mozart Recital. Spanish Riding School and Hitler's "Eagles Nest" as well as several gourmet dinners and a Mozart recital.

In Graz our party expanded to over 50, all dressed in our green and gold t-shirts, and we provided valuable support to the Australian team during the tennis. Alas at this tie the “we the people” group had only 11 supporters so Australian support was in short supply and this wasn’t helped by the organisers seating us in different areas rather than in one large block. Ian Jane has advised that he is planning to organise a tour in November 2019 to Spain in conjunction with the new format Davis Cup World Group which is being held in Madrid in both 2019 and 2020. The famous Spanish Riding School.

Tour members exploring a salt mine in Salzburg.

Page 3! Junior Davis Cup The 2018 Finals of the Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup by BNP Paribas took place in Budapest from Tuesday 25 to 30 September, with 16 boys and 16 girls teams vying for the titles.

On Sunday the 30th September the sixth seeds from Spain were victorious in the Junior Davis Cup, beating the second seeded team from France 2-1.

Australia finished in 13th place out of 16 nations, finishing 4th in its preliminary group (see table below) but then winning its play-off group for places 13 to 16.

Australia’s team was Chen Dong (Yeronga, Qld), Tai Sach (Varsity Lakes, Qld) and Cooper White (Alphington, Vic) led by Tennis Australia Performance coach Mark Draper. Cooper is the son of ADCTF member Anna White.

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Recent posts included information about the draw for the World Group Play-Offs, our 2018 Fund-raising Raffle and the Junior Davis Cup team.

Australians continue to improve in the with Alex De Minaur now our top ranked player.

ATP Rankings at 19.10.18 Alex De Minaur 31 33 37 40 85 Alex De Minaur 91

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