![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
World No.6 Alex de Minaur missed the trip to South America and so too did Alexei Popyrin. <\/p>\n
But Hewitt was still expected to have enough firepower at his disposal.<\/p>\n
Ecuador do not possess a man ranked in the world\u2019s top 200 in singles, while Australia have 13 players ranked higher than Ecuadorean No.1 Alvaro Guillen Meza.<\/p>\n
The 28-time Davis Cup champions also boasted doubles grand slam champions Rinky Hijikata, Jason Kubler and Jordan Thompson in their squad.<\/p>\n
But the hosts seized an unassailable lead after Gonzalo Escobar and Diego Hidalgo beat Hijikata and Thompson 7-6 (7\/5), 6-4 to put the hosts 3-0 ahead in the best-of-five rubber.<\/p>\n
That shock doubles result came after world No.201 Guillen Meza had beaten Hijikata in singles in three sets.<\/p>\n
While world No. 257 Andres Andrade defeated James Duckworth 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 to tee up the upset on clay.<\/p>\n
Ecuador will seek to continue their giant-killing exploits in the next round away to Great Britain.<\/p>\n
The United States cruised to victory in Hungary with France also joining them.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Belgium, Czech Republic and India all won to reach round two. <\/p>\n
In Tatabanya, Hungary, Christian Harrison, the Australian Open doubles champion, paired with Austin Krajicek to claim the clinching point for record 32-time winners the US with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Fabian Marozsan and Zsombor Piros.<\/p>\n
Harrison, making his Davis Cup debut, said: \u201cI had such a good time this week, I already forgot about\u201d the Australian Open, as the Americans won 4-0.<\/p>\n
The United States will travel to Czech Republic for a place in the Final 8. France progressed 3-1 at home to Slovakia after Arthur Rinderknech sealed the vital victory 7-5, 7-6 (8\/6) against Alex Molcan in the second match of the day following Benjamin Bonzi and Pierre-Hugues Herbert\u2019s doubles win.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great doubles match,\u201d Rinderknech said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey played very well. It allowed me to go onto the court with a lot of confidence. I needed it because Molcan was really strong today.\u201d France\u2019s next tie will be a trip across the Atlantic Ocean to Canada. <\/p>\n
Roared on by their fans in Busan, South Korea came from behind to beat Argentina 3-2.<\/p>\n
After Argentina took the lead with doubles victory, Kwon Soon-woo — ranked 248 spots lower than his opponent — beat Thiago Agustin Tirante in three sets to force a decider, which Chung Hyeon duly won.<\/p>\n
The Koreans will next play India, who edged the Netherlands 3-2 in Bengaluru as 465th-ranked Dhakshineswar Suresh bested world number 162 Guy Den Ouden 6-4, 7-6 (7\/4) in the decider.<\/p>\n
In Plovdiv, Belgium swept aside hosts Bulgaria 4-0 to set up a meeting with Austria.<\/p>\n
The Czechs beat visiting Sweden 3-1, with Petr Nouza and Patrik Rikl\u2019s opening doubles win enough to ensure their country\u2019s progression.<\/p>\n
Germany, Austria, Chile, Croatia, Britain and Canada had locked up round two qualifying places earlier in the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia has suffered the embarrassment of crashing out of the Davis Cup in the first round of qualifying…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":576067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[48],"tags":[210631,5229,3774,250012,4740,33383,110,111,232880,250014,2147,1466,4515,222489,250023,32868,14609,250010,250020,250015,250016,250018,234733,79559,61348,440,117,250019,23166,250027,250011,2850,1567,250028,232884,250025,162362,15056,587,33386,9125,33378,250013,250029,250022,250026,110875,250024,250030,50759,4217,15243,250031,250021,62,13048,250017,1464,67,586,132,68,13923],"class_list":["post-576066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-agence-france-presse","tag-america","tag-asia","tag-austin-krajicek","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-austria","tag-belgium","tag-benjamin-bonzi","tag-best-of-five-rubber","tag-canada","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-chile","tag-christian-harrison","tag-clinching-point","tag-croatia","tag-czech-republic","tag-disappointing-loss","tag-doubles-champion","tag-doubles-grand-slam","tag-doubles-match","tag-doubles-victory","tag-eastern-asia","tag-eastern-europe","tag-ecuador","tag-europe","tag-germany","tag-gonzalo-escobar","tag-grand-slam","tag-grand-slam-champions","tag-guillen-meza","tag-hungary","tag-india","tag-james-duckworth","tag-jason-kubler","tag-jordan-thompson","tag-lleyton-hewitt","tag-new-south-wales","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-oceania","tag-opening-doubles-win","tag-pichincha","tag-pierre-hugues-herbert","tag-practice-session","tag-quito","tag-shock-doubles-result","tag-shock-loss","tag-slovakia","tag-south-america","tag-south-korea","tag-southern-asia","tag-southern-europe","tag-sports","tag-sydney","tag-team-captain","tag-tennis","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-western-europe"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}