SYDNEY: World number eight Alex de Minaur pledged Friday to “make life difficult” for Belgium as he strives to put Australia into the Davis Cup finals for a fourth straight year.

But he faces a tricky encounter against 91st-ranked Raphael Collignon in Saturday’s opening singles rubber in their second-round qualifier at Sydney.

Collignon made his presence felt at the just-completed US Open, posting a career-best win over world number 12 and former finalist Casper Ruud en route to the third round.

“He’s going to come after me and my job is to make his life difficult, basically,” said De Minaur, who made the last eight at Flushing Meadows.

“We’re playing at home, we’re playing at a court that I love, and hopefully I can come out tomorrow, put some good tennis on the board and get us off to a good start.”

Jordan Thompson will play the other singles clash against Belgian Zizou Bergs, ranked 31 places higher than him at 46, before the reverse singles and doubles on Sunday.

Belgium will have to overcome an eight-year drought against Australia to reach the final eight for the first time since 2018.

Steve Darcis, now Belgium captain, played in their 2017 World Group semi-final victory over Australia, beating Thompson before they lost to France in the final. He admitted it will be a tough task to repeat the feat against the 28-time champions, who were runners-up in 2022 and 2023 and semi-finalists last year.

But Darcis has confidence in his team.

“Zizou has a lot of energy, sometimes we need to calm him down a little bit, but he loves Davis Cup, he loves the big crowd, he loves to play for his country, so for us, it’s nice to have him in the team,” he said. “For Raf, he’s a little bit new. So, I’m going to try and help him.”

The Davis Cup finals will be hosted by defending champions Italy in November, with the seven teams that win this weekend’s qualifiers joining them.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2025