United Cup: USA prevail over Spain despite Coco Gauff blip against Jessica Bouzas Maneiro

USA have kept their United Cup retention hopes alive as they beat Spain 2-1 to book their spot in Perth’s quarter-finals on Wednesday.

But it came after world No.4 Coco Gauff stumbled following a stunningly sub-par serving performance led to an emphatic three-set upset defeat to Jessica Bouzas Maneiro at RAC Arena.

Two-time major winner Gauff joined the list of high-profile upsets in Perth as she was downed 6-1 6-7 6-0 by world No.42 Bouzas Maneiro.

She hit just one ace, was broken nine times, including her first five and finals three service games and had 14 double-faults and did not win a point off her first 17 second serve attempts.

Gauff’s compatriot Taylor Fritz rescued the rubber for USA heading into the mixed doubles — but only after a monster three hour and 13 minute 7-6 3-6 7-6 thriller over Jaume Munar.

It was a morale-boosting win for Fritz after he was upset by Sebastian Baez as he battled a pre-existing knee injury two days ago, although Munar made him work for every last point.

Gauff then joined forces with Christian Harrison in the mixed doubles as they ripped past Yvonne Cavalle-Reimers and Inigo Cervantes 7-6 6-0 to take top spot in Group A.

USA join Switzerland as the first two teams to reach Perth’s two quarter-final matches, with the winner of Great Britain and Greece’s meeting on Monday night and the best second-placed team of the three groups to join them.

Gauff performed well in the doubles, but earlier had looked a shadow of the singles player who waltzed past Argentina’s Solina Sierra 6-1 6-1 in just 57 minutes on Saturday night.

“It wasn’t a great match for me. I tried my best to fight back with what I had in that moment but once it was over, I just sat in the bathroom for a little bit,” Gauff said.

“I had a lot of confidence in Taylor, so I was just trying to make sure I was ready for the mixed. That’s the beauty of this event, that you have other people who can pick you up on your off days.”

Fritz meanwhile, had harboured a long-running knee injury in Saturday’s shock loss to Argentinian Sebastian Baez.

But he declared himself happy with how manageable the pain had been in his stirring win over Munar which saw Munar deprive him of break point opportunity until late in the match, before the American saved match point in the decisive tiebreak.

“I started feeling my knee towards the end of the first set, but in the past when I’ve started feeling it, it gets worse and worse and worse from that point on,” Fritz said.

“I felt like my pain level stayed kind of at that starting point, so I was able to continue playing the whole match and it never really became to an issue.

“There’s a lot of matches where I don’t have a break point, but I feel like I’m just nowhere near having one. It didn’t feel like that today; the whole time, I just felt like there was going to be a break coming, and it never came.

“But I felt like, I could have set a record today for how many times I was one point away from getting a break point and didn’t.”

Despite a fightback in the second set, the first and third set thrashings in Gauff’s loss took a combined 69 minutes between them.

Not that the American star’s all-round game was much better despite showing glimpses of her talent in the second set — she hit just 10 winners to Bouzas Maneiro’s 27, to go with 54 unforced errors.

After Fritz saw off the Spaniard in the first set tiebreak, the men’s world No.9 found himself under the pump early in the second as Munar broke him early.

Munar cut right down on his unforced errors as the game progressed; after making 14 in the first set, he made just four in the second en route to taking it out in 43 minutes as his defensive lobs kept multiple points alive.

In a 90-minute third set and after Fritz could not take two separate match point opportunities against serve at 6-5 up, the match hinged on a tiebreaker.

The decider ebbed and flowed and both men had match point opportunities after some exemplary shot-making, but Munar’s slice found net at 7-6 down.