Losing the Davis Cup final has only fuelled Alex de Minaur’s hunger to help Australia claim the historic first United Cup on offer.

A fired-up de Minaur said he could not wait to help the host nation try to cap a truly golden year of Australian tennis with victory at the inaugural United Cup, which takes place from December 29 to January 8.

For the first time, the world’s top men’s and women’s players will team up in a best-of-five-match format, seeking to guide their respective countries to glory ahead of the season’s first grand slam in Melbourne.

With Nick Kyrgios returning to national duty following a three-year absence from the Davis Cup, Australia will boast a full-strength line-up also featuring de Minaur, three-times women’s grand slam quarter-finalist Ajla Tomljanović and doubles ace John Peers.

“For me, there’s no greater honour than to represent your country and that’s been my belief always,” de Minaur said from his Spanish base of Alicante.

“It’s another chance, another opportunity to do everything I can to hopefully get a win for Australia.

“So I’ll make sure that I’m ready to go and ready to give it my all.”

In a remarkable 2022, Ash Barty broke a 44-year home singles title drought at the Australian Open, Kyrgios made the Wimbledon final and US Open last eight, Tomljanovic reached the quarterfinals at the All England Club and Flushing Meadows, and Australia qualified for the Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup finals for the first time since 1993.

“It just shows what we’ve been able to accomplish this year in Australian tennis,” de Minaur said on Friday.

“People should realise how meaningful those two results are because they’re very long years and, us Aussies, we tend to spend a lot more time than anybody else on tour away from home.

“And for us to just show how much it means to play for Australia and how much pride we have in representing the green and gold.”

Throw in Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis winning the Australian Open men’s doubles, Matt Ebden and Max Purcell the Wimbledon doubles and Ebden also making the mixed doubles final at SW19 alongside Samantha Stosur, and 2022 is going to prove a tough act to follow.

De Minaur, though, says winning the United Cup would be an “amazing” way to kick-start the new year and he hopes fans will fill Sydney’s Ken Rosewall Arena for Australia’s group matches against Great Britain and Rafael Nadal’s Spain, and potentially the finals.

“We were in Malaga not too long ago playing for a Davis Cup title basically in a neutral venue, when back in the day you would tend to have packed up stadiums for people either cheering for or against you,” the world number 24 said.

“That always made all of this very special.

“But we now get the chance to represent our country in Australia, at home, so it’s going to be great.

“It would mean a lot if we could do some damage, take home the title — especially in front of our home crowd.”

AAP