Australia have secured a desperate 3-2 win over Hungary in Sydney to book their place in the finals of the Davis Cup.
Lleyton Hewitt's side were forced to come back from an early deficit after doubles pairing John Peers and Luke Saville suffered a shock straight sets loss in their early tie to Fabian Marozsan and Mate Valkusz, handing the Hungarians a 2-1 lead.
It meant Alex De Minaur had to fight to keep Australia alive in a do-or-die match against Marton Fucsovics and in typically gritty fashion the World No. 30 rose to the occassion.
Harnessing a wave of energy from the crowd inside Ken Rosewall Arena, de Minaur fought his way past the Hungarian No. 1 7-6 (4), 6-4, setting up a decisive tie between Thanasi Kokkinakis and Zsombor Piros.
Returning to the Davis Cup team after a seven-year absence, Kokkinakis then continued his incredible summer form to again deliver, the 25-year-old overcoming the disappointment of a loss to Fucovics on Friday night to down Piros 6-4 6-4 and courageously lift his team into the tournament's finals stages.
Thanasi timing ⏰@TKokkinakis secures the decisive match and a Finals spot for the green and gold #DavisCup #byRakuten | @TennisAustralia pic.twitter.com/puPcZm7UPP
— Davis Cup (@DavisCup) March 5, 2022
“It’s been a long seven years since I’ve played Davis Cup. The atmosphere was incredible. The cheer you guys gave me before that final service game gave me goosebumps,” Kokkinakis said on-court after the win.
“I had full confidence in the guys. Demon’s our leader. An unbelievable week from him. He’s put Australia on his back time and time again. I thank Lleyton for trusting me. Knowing these guys are going to always come out and give their all, it makes me want to perform.”
The thrilling victory marked just the third time this century an Australian team has overcome a 2-1 deficit in a Davis Cup tie, with Hewitt featuring in the other two comebacks in 2000 and 2015.
"This has to be confidence building for these guys," Hewitt said.
"We try and do hard work on the practice court and we want them to go out and have success now and we feel like these guys are due and they deserve that.
"They've put in the hard work and they've got a couple of big tournaments coming up the next four weeks and there's no reason why they can't be pushing deep into these bigger tournaments and also at the next few majors coming up as well."
De Minaur was over the moon with the fightback victory.
“It means the world. I managed to keep us in here but the job’s not done,” he said.
“We have immense pride, immense passion and one thing you can count on for the Aussie Davis Cup, is that we’re never going to give up.”
The Davis Cup final group stages get underway in September and will include 12 winners from the qualifiers, along with last year's runner-up Croatia and two wild card entries, Great Britain and Serbia.
2021 Davis Cup winners Russia were automatic qualifiers but have since been suspended from all international team competitions until further notice in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
