24 October 2023 | Tennis West

The Australian team competing at the 2023 Davis Cup Finals next month has been revealed with WA’s Matt Ebden selected in the line-up.

Captain Lleyton Hewitt is going with an unchanged line-up, with Alex de Minaur, Max Purcell, Jordan Thompson, Thanasi Kokkinakis and Matt Ebden all set to don the green and gold.

This is the same team that helped Australia qualify for the Final 8 during the round-robin stage at Manchester in September.

World No.13 Alex de Minaur won two of his three singles matches during the group stage, while doubles combination Max Purcell and Matt Ebden were unbeaten across their three matches.

After recording a runner-up finish in 2022, the Australian team is looking to win their first Davis Cup title in 20 years.

They’ll begin that quest with a quarterfinal showdown against the Czech Republic on Wednesday 22 November, played at an indoor hard-court at Malaga in Spain.

Australia has won eight of its previous nine Davis Cup meetings against the Czech Republic. This includes the most recent tie at Melbourne in 2017, when Jordan Thompson won two singles encounters to secure a 4-1 World Group first-round victory for Australia.

“We won’t be reading a lot into our past head-to-head matches against the Czech Republic when we go into this battle,” Hewitt said.

“They have a lot of new, young players in the team, quality players in (Jiri) Lehecka and also (Tomas) Machac. They are very confident at the moment and they played extremely well in their qualifying matches, winning all three matches by three rubbers to love.

“We’re very wary, but we feel quietly confident in our team. I have full belief in the boys that they can go out there and hopefully get the job done for us.”

The winner of Australia and the Czech Republic advances to a semifinal showdown against either defending champions Canada or Finland on Friday 24 November.

“On our half of the draw is Canada, who we lost a very close final to last year so it would be nice to get an opportunity to try and get revenge on them in the semifinals if we can get through,” Hewitt added.

“Otherwise, Finland, who have really been a bit of a surprise packet have quality players throughout their team as well.

“First thing first, we have to take care of the Czech Republic to give us a shot to get through to the final four.”

Italy, Netherlands, Serbia and Great Britain are the other nations still in contention to win the coveted Davis Cup title in 2023.

The Final 8 stage of the 2023 Davis Cup competition runs from 21-26 November in Spain.