The Biało-Czerwoni (White-Reds) were able to benefit from their leader’s excellent game. Hubert Hurkacz was the first to score a point for Poland with his victory over Sergei Fomin. However, even Max Kaśnikowski’s win over Chumojun Sultanov did not secure the win for Poland. In order to achieve their goal, the Poles needed one more victory in Saturday’s matches.

On our side, we saw Hubert Hurkacz in action – a quarter-finalist in the Australian Open singles, and Jan Zieliński, the Melbourne mixed doubles champion. Unexpectedly, the 665th ranked Fomin and the 330th ranked Sultanov had a better start to the match. After a long battle in the third game, they broke the Biało-Czerwoni, quickly forcing our duo to make a concentrated effort. Hurkacz and Zieliński immediately set out to recover.

From a score of 1:3, they won two games in a row and leveled the score to 3:3. This did not faze their opponents at all. They confidently served, and the first set was decided by a tie-break. In it, the Poles showed much greater quality, losing only one point and winning decisively 7:6(1).

The end of the first set threw the hosts off balance, which, combined with our tennis players’ better performance, had to yield results. Our tennis players, on their second attempt, broke their rivals in the third game, and during their next service game, successfully defended the following two break points. Ultimately, they carried the advantage they had previously secured to the end of the match and won the national competition’s third match confidently. Thanks to this victory and earlier wins of Hurkacz over Fomin and Kaśnikowski over Chumojun, the Poles secured their promotion to the World Group I.

This will be their first time in the group since 2015.