Australia beats the United States at the Davis Cup to reach the semifinals

MALAGA, Spain (AP) — Australia reached the Davis Cup semifinals for the third consecutive year, eliminating the United States 2-1 when Matt Ebden and Jordan Thompson beat the surprise, last-minute pairing of Ben Shelton and Tommy Paul 6-4, 6-4 in the deciding doubles match on Thursday.

The victory on an indoor hard court at the Palacio de Deportes Jose Maria Martina Carpena in southern Spain means 28-time Davis Cup champion Australia will face defending champion Italy or Argentina on Saturday for a spot in the final of the annual team competition.

The other semifinal, to be contested Friday, is the Netherlands against Germany. The Dutch got past Rafael Nadal and Spain in the quarterfinals earlier in the week, sending the 22-time Grand Slam champion into retirement.

The Australians were the runners-up the past two years, including in 2023 against Italy, which is led by No. 1-ranked Jannik Sinner.

The Americans own a record 32 Davis Cup titles but haven’t been to the semifinals since 2018 and haven’t claimed the title since 2007, their longest drought in the event.

The Shelton-Paul substitution for Paris Olympics silver medalists Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram was announced about 15 minutes before the doubles match began. Ebden and John Peers beat Krajicek and Ram in the Summer Games final in August.

The Australians broke once in each set of the doubles. In the second, they stole one of Shelton's service games on the fourth break opportunity when Ebden's overhead smash made it 5-4. Thompson then served out the victory, closing it with a service winner before chest-bumping Ebden.

The 21st-ranked Shelton made his Davis Cup debut earlier Thursday in singles against 77th-ranked Thanasi Kokkinakis, who emerged from a tight-as-can-be tiebreaker by saving four match points and eventually converting his seventh to win 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (14).

No. 4 Taylor Fritz, the U.S. Open runner-up, then pulled the Americans even with a far more straightforward victory over No. 9 Alex de Minaur, 6-3, 6-4.

Kokkinakis withstood 21 aces from Shelton, a big-serving left-hander who reached the U.S. Open semifinals in 2023.

When their match finally ended, on a backhand by Shelton that landed long, Kokkinakis dropped onto his back and pounded his chest. After he rose, he threw a ball into the stands, then walked over to Australia's sideline, spiked his racket and yelled, before hugging captain Lleyton Hewitt.

“I don’t know if I've been that pumped up in my life. I wanted that for my team,” said Kokkinakis, who won the 2022 Australian Open men's doubles title with Nick Kyrgios. “It could have gone either way, but I kept my nerve.”

One key stat: Shelton finished with 29 unforced errors in his Davis Cup debut, nearly twice as many as the 15 by Kokkinakis.

After a strong hold at love in an opening game that included a 139 mph (224 kph) ace and a trio of service winners, Shelton lost his way completely, losing 12 of his next 16 service points and six games in a row overall. That set ended with Shelton double-faulting when he was cited for a foot fault.

But he broke to open the second set and soon the match was far more competitive.

“Once I got going, I thought I found a really good groove," Shelton said. "I didn’t exactly like how I finished the match at the end. I thought I left a little bit on the table.”

Fritz won nine of his 10 service games against de Minaur and dealt just fine with a quick turnaround after reaching the title match at the ATP Finals on Sunday in Turin, Italy, before losing to Sinner.

Fritz flew to Spain the next day, then practiced Tuesday and Wednesday.

“I’m just really happy,” Fritz said, “with how I held it together.”

AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

Australia's Athanasios Kokkinakis celebrates after winning against Ben Shelton of the United States during a Davis Cup quarterfinal match at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Ben Shelton of the United States reacts against Australia's Athanasios Kokkinakis during a Davis Cup quarterfinal match at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Taylor Fritz of the United States, right, shakes hands afer defeating Australia's Alex de Minaur during a Davis Cup quarterfinal match at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Taylor Fritz of the United States returns the ball to Australia's Alex de Minaur during a Davis Cup quarterfinal match at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Taylor Fritz of the United States celebrates a point against Australia's Alex de Minaur during a Davis Cup quarterfinal match at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Ben Shelton of the United States returns the ball to Australia's Athanasios Kokkinakis during a Davis Cup quarterfinal match at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Ben Shelton of the United States gestures as he plays Australia's Athanasios Kokkinakis during a Davis Cup quarterfinal match at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Australia's Athanasios Kokkinakis celebrates after winning against Ben Shelton of the United States during a Davis Cup quarterfinal match at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Australia's Athanasios Kokkinakis celebrates after winning against Ben Shelton of the United States during a Davis Cup quarterfinal match at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall, in Malaga, southern Spain, on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

U.S. regulators want a federal judge to break up Google to prevent the company from continuing to squash competition through its dominant search engine after a court found it had maintained an abusive monopoly over the past decade.

The proposed breakup floated in a 23-page document filed late Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice calls for sweeping punishments that would include a sale of Google's industry-leading Chrome web browser and impose restrictions to prevent Android from favoring its own search engine.

A sale of Chrome “will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet,” Justice Department lawyers argued in their filing.

Although regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android too, they asserted the judge should make it clear the company could still be required to divest its smartphone operating system if its oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct.

The broad scope of the recommended penalties underscores how severely regulators operating under President Joe Biden's administration believe Google should be punished following an August ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that branded the company as a monopolist.

The Justice Department decision-makers who will inherit the case after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year might not be as strident. The Washington, D.C. court hearings on Google's punishment are scheduled to begin in April and Mehta is aiming to issue his final decision before Labor Day.

If Mehta embraces the government's recommendations, Google would be forced to sell its 16-year-old Chrome browser within six months of the final ruling. But the company certainly would appeal any punishment, potentially prolonging a legal tussle that has dragged on for more than four years.

Besides seeking a Chrome spinoff and a corralling of the Android software, the Justice Department wants the judge to ban Google from forging multibillion-dollar deals to lock in its dominant search engine as the default option on Apple’s iPhone and other devices. It would also ban Google from favoring its own services, such as YouTube or its recently-launched artificial intelligence platform, Gemini.

Regulators also want Google to license the search index data it collects from people’s queries to its rivals, giving them a better chance at competing with the tech giant. On the commercial side of its search engine, Google would be required to provide more transparency into how it sets the prices that advertisers pay to be listed near the top of some targeted search results.

Kent Walker, Google’s chief legal officer, lashed out at the Justice Department for pursuing “a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology.” In a blog post, Walker warned the “overly broad proposal” would threaten personal privacy while undermining Google’s early leadership in artificial intelligence, “perhaps the most important innovation of our time.”

Wary of Google’s increasing use of artificial intelligence in its search results, regulators also advised Mehta to ensure websites will be able to shield their content from Google’s AI training techniques.

The measures, if they are ordered, threaten to upend a business expected to generate more than $300 billion in revenue this year.

“The playing field is not level because of Google’s conduct, and Google’s quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired,” the Justice Department asserted in its recommendations. “The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages.”

It’s still possible that the Justice Department could ease off attempts to break up Google, especially if Trump takes the widely expected step of replacing Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who was appointed by Biden to oversee the agency's antitrust division.

Although the case targeting Google was originally filed during the final months of Trump’s first term in office, Kanter oversaw the high-profile trial that culminated in Mehta's ruling against Google. Working in tandem with Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, Kanter took a get-tough stance against Big Tech that triggered other attempted crackdowns on industry powerhouses such as Apple and discouraged many business deals from getting done during the past four years.

Trump recently expressed concerns that a breakup might destroy Google but didn’t elaborate on alternative penalties he might have in mind. “What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it’s more fair,” Trump said last month. Matt Gaetz, the former Republican congressman that Trump nominated to be the next U.S. Attorney General, has previously called for the breakup of Big Tech companies.

Gaetz faces a tough confirmation hearing.

This latest filing gave Kanter and his team a final chance to spell out measures that they believe are needed to restore competition in search. It comes six weeks after Justice first floated the idea of a breakup in a preliminary outline of potential penalties.

But Kanter's proposal is already raising questions about whether regulators seek to impose controls that extend beyond the issues covered in last year’s trial, and — by extension — Mehta’s ruling.

Banning the default search deals that Google now pays more than $26 billion annually to maintain was one of the main practices that troubled Mehta in his ruling.

It's less clear whether the judge will embrace the Justice Department’s contention that Chrome needs to be spun out of Google, and the recommendation that Android should be completely walled off from the company's own search engine.

“It is probably going a little beyond,” Syracuse University law professor Shubha Ghosh said of the Chrome breakup. “The remedies should match the harm, it should match the transgression. This does seem a little beyond that pale.”

Google rival DuckDuckGo, whose executives testified during last year's trial, asserted the Justice Department is simply doing what needs to be done to rein in a brazen monopolist.

“Undoing Google’s overlapping and widespread illegal conduct over more than a decade requires more than contract restrictions: it requires a range of remedies to create enduring competition,” Kamyl Bazbaz, DuckDuckGo's senior vice president of public affairs, said in a statement.

Trying to break up Google harks back to a similar punishment initially imposed on Microsoft a quarter century ago following another major antitrust trial that culminated in a federal judge deciding the software maker had illegally used his Windows operating system for PCs to stifle competition.

However, an appeals court overturned an order that would have broken up Microsoft, a precedent many experts believe will make Mehta reluctant to go down a similar road with the Google case.

FILE - The Google building is seen in New York, Feb. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)