Alex de Minaur has finished just short of the biggest win of his burgeoning tennis career, with Australia crashing out of the ATP Cup with a semi-final loss to Spain.
World No.1 Rafael Nadal showed his class with a 4-6 7-5 6-1 win over the 20-year-old, after Nick Kyrgios delivered his poorest match of the tournament in going down to Roberto Bautista Agut 6-1 6-4.
Spain will play the Novak Djokovic-led Serbia in Sunday night's final. The Serbs beat Russia 3-0 in the first semi-final.
Kyrgios's defeat had left de Minaur needing an unlikely victory to push the match to a deciding doubles clash.
But adopting a similarly aggressive game plan to Belgium's David Goffin, who downed Nadal on Friday night, de Minaur was outstanding, hitting winner after winner to put the 19-time grand slam champion on the back foot.
Breaking Nadal on his first service game, he held firm to take the opening set and went toe-to-toe with the Spaniard for much of the second.
After a break-point chance at 5-5 to serve for the match, things started to unravel for de Minaur who'd lost in straight sets to Nadal in their two previous encounters.
Nadal snatched the set with his only opportunity as part of a run of six-consecutive games to effectively seal the match.
The irrepressible de Minaur pinched a break back but it wasn't enough as Nadal avoided losses in back-to-back matches for the first time since October 2016.
Earlier, the Kyrgios steam train was derailed by Bautista Agut.
A shadow of the player who had racked up a 3-0 singles record and a decisive doubles win at the teams tournament, Kyrgios struggled from the outset and never recovered.
Down 5-0 in the opener, the best the world No.29 could do was hold serve to ensure he could start up the second with ball in hand.
A tighter contest ensued early in the second but, when Kyrgios coughed up a break after an ill-advised trip to the net off a second serve, the match was as good as done.
Still, it has been a good Australian Open tune-up for Kyrgios, who had logged an impressive win against world No.6 Stefanos Tsitsipas and a heroic doubles win with de Minaur over Great Britain during the tournament.
"cup" - Google News
January 11, 2020 at 07:36PM
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Spain down Australia in ATP Cup semi-final - ESPN
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