United Cup | Britain's Tennis star on Saturday defeated Spain's iconic Tennis player Rafael Nadal in a match at the United Cup mixed team tournament. Nadal, who had mixed 2022 lost the match in three sets 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. With this win, Britain have taken a 1-0 lead over Spain in the tournament.
Nadal won the Australian Open and French Open to take his career Grand Slam singles to total to a leading 22. But foot, rib and abdomen injuries meant he played only four events after Wimbledon in July. Norrie failed to win a set in his four previous matches against Nadal. "It was pretty crazy. I was thinking I'd never won a set before, so I wanted to come out and firstly do that," Norrie said. "It was a super physical match and I enjoyed it. It's a great way to end 2022 for me," he added.
In other matches, Top-ranked Iga Swiatek gave Poland an early lead over Kazakhstan when she beat Yulia Putintseva 6-1 6-3 at Brisbane. "First matches of the season are always kind of rusty, so I'm happy that in the important moments I was really composed," Swiatek said.
At Perth, Bulgaria and Belgium were level at 1-1 after the first day. Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov beat David Goffin 6-4 7-5 after Alison Van Uytvanck had a 6-1 3-6 6-2 win over Isabella Shinikova to give Belgium the early lead. Earlier, Jiri Lehecka scored a 6-4 6-2 upset win over world No.12 Alexander Zverev to help give the Czech Republic a 2-0 lead. The 21-year-old Lehecka, ranked No.81, broke four times in the Group C match at Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney to bounce back from an opening singles loss to Taylor Fritz of the United States on Thursday.
Marie Bouzkova later beat Jule Niemeier 6-2 7-5 in the second match to give the Czechs a 2-0 lead. Czech women's No.1 Petra Kvitova can clinch the tie on Sunday when she faces Laura Siegemund. World 15th-ranked Beatriz Haddad Maia improved her tournament record to 2-0 after defeating Malene Helgo of Norway 6-4 6-2. Felipe Meligeni Alves gave Brazil its second win of the day when he beat Viktor Durasovic 6-3 6-3.
Two singles match — one men's and one women's — are played over each of two days, with a mixed doubles to conclude the five-match encounter on the second day. The inaugural United Cup has teams from 18 countries competing in Brisbane, Perth and Sydney through to January 4. The three city champions and the next-best performing country from the group stage will meet at Ken Rosewall Arena from January 6 to 8 to determine the overall winner. After matches were completed on Friday, top-ranked Greece led Group A with a 4-1 record, Switzerland heads Group B (5-0), the U.S.is first in Group C (4-1), Britain (3-2) tops Group D, Italy is in first place in Group E with a 3-2 record and France (5-0) leads Group F.
