Flavio Cobolli dug deep to claim a 6-3 6-7 (8-10) 6-2 upset win over France's Ugo Humbert in Sydney to ensure Italy's progression before world No.4 Taylor Fritz outclassed Borna Coric 6-3 6-2 in the opening rubber of Team USA's tie with Croatia in Perth.
Team Italy needed to win just one match in Tuesday's clash at Ken Rosewall Arena to advance, and Cobolli did just that on New Year's eve.
Humbert looked set to clinch an easy victory over Cobolli after  putting together a clinical performance to take the first set in 31 minutes.
But Cobolli broke back after Humbert served for the contest before staving off a match point in a tense second-set tiebreaker.Â
France's world No.14 cracked under the pressure in the decider as he racked up 22 unforced errors to nine, Cobolli pulling off his comeback win in two hours and four minutes.
Jasmine Paolini then added an exclamation mark to Italy's 2-0 win, the world No.4 easily defeating Chloe Paquet 6-0 6-2 in exactly an hour.
Winners of the past two Davis Cups and runners-up two years ago to the US in the inaugural edition of the season-opening mixed teams' event, Italy won Group D even without world No.1 Jannik Sinner after also beating Switzerland 2-0 in their opening tie.
🤯🤯🤯 @cobollifla #UnitedCup pic.twitter.com/Xkc8TOqOzm— United Cup (@UnitedCupTennis) December 31, 2024
France will bow out of the tournament after losing both group matches, their first being a 2-1 defeat to Switzerland.
They needed to either win all three rubbers against Italy to secure a quarter-final spot or 2-1 and have other results fall their way to finish the best runners-up out of the three groups.
The star-studded top-seeded US outfit only needed to win one rubber in straight sets on Tuesday to top Group A, and Fritz lived up to expectations with a dominant display against Coric.
Kazakhstan, Germany and China had already clinched their spots in the quarter-finals on Monday, with China having finished the best runners-up team in Perth.
