Norway wins Group F after Croatia defeats Netherlands

Croatia won its United Cup tie against the Netherlands 2-1 on Tuesday evening, but neither country won Group F. Instead, Norway advances to the quarter-finals in Sydney.

All three countries finished with a 1-1 record and a 50 per cent sets won rate. Norway topped the group by virtue of their games winning percentage.

Croatia knew it could win Group F by sweeping the tie and came close to doing so. Borna Coric and Donna Vekic won their singles matches and Ivan Dodig and Vekic held match point in the mixed doubles. 

But Wesley Koolhof and Demi Schuurs spoiled their party, as well as Dodig's 39th birthday. The Dutch defeated the Croatian's 6-7(3), 6-3, 14-12, with Koolhof hitting a backhand volley winner to save match point at 11/10.

"I'm happy with the win. It was a very exciting match, especially at the end," Schuurs said. "It was very close, it could have gone both ways. But of course we wanted to win in two sets and we knew that before the match... It's a lot of emotions."

If the Netherlands won the mixed doubles in straight sets, it would have won the group. But Koolhof and Schuurs overcame their disappointment to win the match.

"We knew what we had to do," Koolhof said. "It was a very tight first set, so a bit of a bummer that we lost that one."

Croatia will now wait to see if it will advance to the quarter-finals as the top second-placed team in Sydney.

Vekic clinched a tie win for her country over the Netherlands with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 defeat of Arantxa Rus. Earlier, Borna Coric had bounced back from a straight-sets loss Monday to give Croatia a 1-0 lead. The 2022 Cincinnati champion defeated Tallon Griekspoor 7-6(4), 6-4 inside Ken Rosewall Arena. 

After saving a pair of break points in her first service game, Vekic dominated Rus with a blend of power and touch in the first set. The WTA World No.24's forehand was on song, and garnered her the first break of Rus's serve for 3-2, while she also kept the Dutchwoman off balance with judicious use of the drop shot.

However, Rus hit back in the second set with strong serving — the World No.51 did not face a break point in this stretch — to keep her nose in front. At 4-3, she captured the decisive break of the set thanks to smart net play and a series of errant forehands from Vekic.

But Vekic regained control in the decider with rock-solid all-round play. The 27-year-old kept Rus on the back foot throughout, pressuring the forehand side to elicit a series of errors on key points. Vekic also impressed on defenxe, coming up with a pinpoint lob en route to breaking for an unassailable 5-1 lead.

Coric bounced back from a straight-sets loss Monday to give Croatia a 1-0 lead in the tie.

This was the second Lexus ATP Head2Head matchup between Coric and Griekspoor, who also met in Hamburg two years ago, when Coric triumphed in straight sets. This occasion was no different, but the Croatian needed to save two set points on serve at 4-5, 15/40 in the first set.

“First set I was feeling very good and then again [at] 5-4 I actually played honestly a very, very poor game and that almost cost me the first set,” Coric said. “Then obviously in the second set I still missed a little bit of matches and all of the stuff. Maybe if I was playing in the past four months I would have maybe closed that out. I didn’t, but I’m just very happy with the last game obviously as well.”

We're exhausted from watching this 🥵@borna_coric and @Griekii putting on a show!#UnitedCup pic.twitter.com/z8FORu7DBe

— United Cup (@UnitedCupTennis) January 2, 2024

This is Coric’s first event since last season’s US Open. He lost his first match back against former World No. 2 Casper Ruud.

World No. 23 Griekspoor is two spots off his career-high Pepperstone ATP Ranking, but he was unable to crack the Coric code. The Dutchman battled from a break down in the second set, but it was not enough.

Coric let out a loud roar as his teammates jumped up in their team zone when Griekspoor missed a final forehand long. The crowd also erupted in support of the victor.

“Absolutely amazing crowd,” Coric said. “Thank you very much guys for coming out. I haven’t been playing tennis in the past four months so I needed all the extra support.”