U.S. juniors seal return trip to BNP Paribas World Team Cup final

For the second year in a row, the U.S. junior World Team Cup team will play for the title at the BNP Paribas World Team Cup. The Americans beat Brazil in Saturday's semifinals 2-1 to advance to the title match for the eighth time in the competition's 25-year history. 

The sixth-seeded Americans' momentum from the round-robin stage, where they went 3-0, continued in the semifinals, as Charlie Cooper and Tomas Majetic both stayed hot as the U.S.'s top singles players. Majetic, ranked No. 12 in the world, opened the tie with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Vittoria Miranda, the world No. 2, before Cooper sent the U.S. to the final with a 6-2, 6-0 win over Luis Calixto in a match between two Top 10 players.

In four matches so far in Antayla, Cooper and Majetic have posted a combined 6-0 record in their singles matches without the loss of a set.

In Sunday's final, the U.S. will face Australia in the hopes of winning its fifth junior title all-time. The U.S. last won the division in 2017, a victory which completed a hat trick of three straight titles for the red, white and blue. That year also marked the last time the U.S. won any division of the World Team Cup, which is the wheelchair counterpart to the Billie Jean King Cup and the Davis Cup.

The Americans' first junior title came in their debut in 2000.

The final is a rematch of the Americans' second group-stage match, which was played Thursday. The U.S. won that one, 3-0, without the loss of a set, and in fact, surrendered just 14 games across six sets. In singles, Majetic and Cooper won their matches against Jin Woodman and Benjamin Wenzel, respectively, by the scores of 6-1, 6-3 and 6-4, 6-2; the U.S. pair then beat Woodman and Yassin Hill in doubles 6-3, 6-1.

The Australians booked their spot in the final with a dramatic 2-1 win over Japan in the other semifinal; after the two nations split singles matches, Wenzel and Woodman won the deciding doubles 6-4, 4-6, [16-14] in a match tiebreak that extended well past the regulation 10 points.