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United Cup: Italy, Czech Republic meet with a semifinal berth on the line

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A few days ago, after Team Italy had wrapped up a trip to the United Cup quarterfinals, reporters asked members who they’d prefer to play. The two potential options mentioned were Great Britain and Australia.

“I don’t like to say,” Jasmine Paolini

said. “I don’t like also to think which team or which opponent is going to be better. When you think one is better, you play against him or her -- and you lost.”

As it turns out, after a quirk in the qualifying scenarios came to fruition, Italy meets the Czech Republic on Friday in Sydney, the last of the quarterfinals.

United Cup: Scores | Draws | Order of Play

Poland was supposed to take on the best second-place team in Sydney, but that was the Czech Republic, whom they had just beaten in Group B play. According to United Cup rules, teams from the same group cannot meet again until the final. Thus, Great Britain and the Czech Republic swapped spots, setting up Thursday’s Poland-Great Britain tie (won by Poland) and Friday’s tasty tilt between Italy and the Czech Republic.

The winner will advance to Saturday’s semifinals in Ken Rosewall Arena against the 3-0 United States. Kazakhstan (3-0) takes on Poland (3-0) in the other Final Four matchup.

Meanwhile, it’s the quarterfinals in Brisbane, featuring No.1 Aryna Sabalenka

. The Auckland, New Zealand quarterfinals are headlined by No.1 seed and No.7 .

United Cup: Sydney

Group D winner Italy (2-0) vs Group B runner-up Czech Republic (1-1)

Start time: (5:30 p.m. local, 1:30 a.m. ET)

[4] Jasmine Paolini

(ITA) vs [8] (CZE)
[4] Flavio Cobolli (ITA) vs [8] Tomas Machac (CZE)
[4] (ITA) / Andrea Vavassori (ITA) vs [8] Karolina Muchova (CZE) / Tomas Machac (CZE)

So how did the Czech Republic slip into the quarters -- how close was it?

Australia, Argentina and the Czechs all split six matches, and the next tiebreaker was percentage of sets won. The Czech Republic and Australia both won 50 percent, so it came down to percentage of games won -- and the Czechs came in at 51.05, barely ahead of Australia’s 49.52.

Paolini is ranked No.4 in the world, but she’s facing a tremendous adversary in Muchova, who has won all four of their previous meetings, the most recent in the 2024 US Open’s Round of 16.

Cobolli and Machac have never played, but this feels like a fair fight. Look at the numbers:

Cobolli is ranked No.32, is 22 years old and went 35-27 in 2024.

Machac is No.25, 24 years old and was 33-23.

If it comes down to mixed doubles, Italy might have the advantage. Sara Errani

and Andrea Vavassori are 2-0, with straight-set wins over France and Switzerland. Muchova and Machac are 1-1 after losing to and Hubert Hurkacz of Poland.

Brisbane International

Sixteen seeds began the tournament six days ago and only two remain -- No.1 Sabalenka and No.8 Mirra Andreeva