United Cup: Great Britain’s Billy Harris loses to Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz before Katie Boulter plays Inga Swiatek

Great Britain’s hopes of reaching the United Cup semi-finals rest on Katie Boulter beating five-time major champion Iga Swiatek after Billie Harris narrowly lost to former Wimbledon semi-finalist Hubert Hurkacz.

The 29-year-old Harris overcame 16th-ranked Hurkacz in the opening match of the best-of-three clash before losing 7-6 (7-3) 7-5 in Sydney.

Late riser Harris, who is ranked 125th in the world after huge progress over the past two years, was aiming to set Britain on course to reach the last four with the biggest win of her career.

Their defeat means the 28-year-old Boulter will have to defeat Swiatek on Thursday to win the deciding mixed doubles match.

Harris is playing as Britain’s leading player in the mixed-gender team event, while Jack Draper is nursing a hip injury and Cameron Norie is playing in the ATP event in Hong Kong.

Although he served strongly, Harris was unable to break Hurkacz and fell behind in the crucial moments.

Neither player faced a break point in a tight first set, until the Briton countered two chances for Hurkacz in a tense 12th game, eventually holding serve to force a tie-break.

A costly mistake from Harris – a long mistake with an overhead – gave an early mini-break to Hurkacz, whose pedigree at the highest level was demonstrated by the way he clinically took the lead.

Despite falling behind, Harris showed her mental toughness in the second set. He quickly reset to create three break points in the second game, only for Hurkacz to fight back from 0-40 down with five huge serves to get him out of trouble.

Harris was finally broken when Hurkacz took a 6–5 lead and with the Briton in trouble, the 27-year-old Pole quickly held at love to win.

“I’m extremely happy, it was a tough battle with Billy,” said Hurkacz, whose run to the Wimbledon semi-finals in 2021 is his best performance at any major competition.