BOLOGNA, Italy — Flavio Cobolli defeated Filip Misorich 6-1, 6-3 on Wednesday to give back-to-back champions Italy a 2-0 win over Austria and set up a meeting with Belgium in the Davis Cup semifinals.
Cobolli clinched a resounding victory with a service winner after 65 minutes, much to the delight of the home crowd.
The semifinals are scheduled for Friday.
Italy has won 12 straight Davis Cup matches since losing to Canada in the final group stage in 2023.
Earlier, Italy’s Matteo Berrettini defeated Julie Rodionov 6-3, 7-6 (4).
Berrettini fell behind 5-2 in the second set, but came back with a break in the ninth game. In his next match, he fought off three set points against his 177th-ranked opponent and converted the first match point in the tiebreaker to win.
In case of a tie, there was no doubles play, as it would be a best-of-three match.
Leaders Italy are aiming for their third consecutive victory and fourth overall.
Four-time Grand Slam champion Jannik Sinner, who led Italy to titles in 2023 and 2024, has opted to sit out this season’s Davis Cup final.
Austria, ranked 12th in the rankings, have only beaten Italy once in their last six meetings – their best result in a team event was in the quarter-finals in Vienna in 1990.
The Davis Cup Final 8 in Bologna will be the sixth edition of the revamped event where the champion will be determined on a neutral site.
Six-time Grand Slam champion and No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz, who was scheduled to finish runner-up to Sinner at the ATP Finals in Turin on Sunday, withdrew with a hamstring injury.
In Thursday’s remaining two quarterfinal matches, Spain will play fourth-seeded Czech Republic, and second-seeded Germany will play Argentina.
