Sunday, April 18, 2021

BJK Cup Playoffs Recap: A Cup by Any Other Name...

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship...









*A DOZEN THINGS THAT WERE GOOD*
1. Magdalena.Frech.Is.The.Woman.

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2. The Joy of Zacarias

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3. Brazil and Argentina, even in losses, showing South American Cup pride isn't dead. While North American neighbor Mexico proved that a fighting instinct can take you (almost) a long way.
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4. Elina Svitolina showing that confidence and the ability to back it up -- even if not in an entirely convincing way -- does indeed still lurk in there *somewhere*
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5. The Return of Big Game Boulter

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6. The Latvian One-Two Punch
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7. Team Italia Rising



And maybe the discovery of the leader of the Generation PDQ version of the operation...

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8. 430 > 23 + 30

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9. Just Call Her Captain Kazakh (and of "The Clean-Up Crew")

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10. Here She Comes to Save the Day!

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11. Oh Canada! (Again)

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12. Proof that even a one-legged Kiki knows how to celebrate when the Dutch team wins

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*FIVE THAT WEREN'T*
1. Nobody puts The Bracelet in the corner. Well, except maybe for Dusan Vemic (I guess).
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2. A Romanian home court effort in Cup competition without Si-mo-na, or a horde of rabid fans ready to give their very lives for a rally-ending winner (or, you know, a DF by the opponent -- it all counts the same, after all) turned out to not be much to write home about
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3. Kazakhs are gonna Kazakh. [Cup Rule #11]
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4. All Radwanskas are equal, but some are more equal than others.
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5. Home (apparently) isn't where the heart is. At least it wasn't for Nadia Podoroska in Argentina this week.
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kosova-font

In typical infinite Cup wisdom (or at least that of whomever decides these things), the official list of MVP nominees posted by the BJK Cup apparatus was a four-player collection of individuals with which this space only really agreed with *one*...



One nominee nearly lost in her chance to clinch vs. a team of Cup newcomers (who didn't think that tie would be a shutout?), while another's team lost their tie outright even while their opponents were falling all over themselves (and she was on the court in the deciding doubles loss). At least they didn't nominate Yulia Putintseva (though I bet she was in the running, even though she couldn't actually run by the end of the KAZ/ARG tie).

My nominees would have been Magdalena Frech, Arantxa Rus, Elisabetta Cocciaretto and Katie Boulter -- likely in that order -- though I can't really mount an argument *against* Fernandez's inclusion, I just wouldn't have had her in the Top 4 nominees.





*2020-21 BJK CUP PLAYOFFS (Week 12)*





[Tie-by-Tie]

Poland def. Brazil 3-2 [dd] / Bytom, POL (HCI)
...what at first appeared to be set to be a nice little tie that wouldn't likely provide much drama turned into a going-the-distance, two-day battle in which the underdog Brazilians pushed the Poles to the edge on their home court in Bytom, with the final outcome in question right down to the final games of the concluding match.

Magdalena Frech/POL
...if a few days ago someone had said that the most important player in the very first edition of the Billie Jean King Cup Playoffs would be Frech, you'd have wondered if maybe their COVID vaccine might have secretly included a bit of "happy juice" in the injection. But that's just what happened. The 23-year old Pole, who's yet to break the Top 100 in her WTA career, has just one slam MD victory, and has never recorded a Top 10 victory turned out the be the most indispensable individual in the entire late-week Cup competition, becoming the only player to have a hand in all three of her team's points in the eight playoff tie match-ups on hand.

Frech's straight sets match #1 win over Carolina Alves gave little hint of what was to come, while her 3:04, back-from-a-set-down victory over a very game Laura Pigossi in match #3 turned out be far more important than anyone realized once Katarzyna Kawa was upset by Alves in the next match, forcing the tie to the deciding doubles. There, Frech teamed up with the redemption-minded Kawa, facing off against Alves and a very-fresh Luisa Stefani. The NCAA product boosted Brazil to a 1st set win, but Frech helped lead her *second* comeback victory of the day to finally clinch the victory.
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[SURPRISES]
Laura Pigossi/BRA and Carolina Alves/BRA
...first, #326 Pigossi upended #227 Urszula Radwanska in match #2 in a 2:51 three-set affair, denying the veteran Pole her first Cup win since 2015 and putting an eyebrow-raising "hmmmm" stamp on Day 1 of the competition. Then, with Poland a win away from a trip to the '22 Qualifiers, #342 Alves took down #133 Kawa (in her Cup singles debut), who'd replaced Radwanska in the Day 2 rotation. With the upset within reach, Alves returned for the doubles with Stefani and won the opening set before the tide was finally stemmed and the Poles won in three.

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[DOUBLES]
Magdalena Frech/Katarzyna Kawa, POL
...Frech had already pulled *more* than her weight in this tie before the doubles, but for Kawa it was an immediate chance to wipe the slate clean just one match after she'd dropped a potential clinching singles match to a player ranked nearly 200 spots below her. That player was Alves, and the from-a-set-down, 1-6/6-2/6-4 comeback victory for Poland over Alves & Stefani likely proved to be for Kawa a successful bit of memory-erasing as she quickly went from the "one who didn't get it done" to the "one who helped win it all" in a matter of a few hours. Bravo!

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Match #3 - Magdalena Frech/POL def. Laura Pigossi/BRA 4-6/6-3/7-6(4)
...this Frech win in 3:04 was big at the time, but it seemed as if would simply serve as Brazil's "last stand" in this tie. Hint: it wasn't.
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Great Britain def. Mexico 3-1 / London, GBR (HCO)
...one figured the Mexican team would fight the Brits, who'd have to dot all their i's and cross all their t's in order to avoid a stumble that could make things tense on Day 2. They didn't, as it turned out. But it didn't matter, because Katie Boulter was around to take care of the "clean up on Aisle 5" before it could it really become a mess.

[MVP]
Katie Boulter/GBR
...two years ago, Boulter earned her Cup Warrior stripes when she put up such a fight in a pair of three-setters (she went 1-1) vs. Kazakhstan that she injured her back, causing her to miss six months and setting back her career ever since (it's why she entered with a #291 ranking after being on-the-rise and as high as #82 just before that April '19 tie). With Johanna Konta out, and Heather Watson stubbing her toe in match #3 on Day 2, Boulter returned to her "Big Game Boulter" ways by completing her four-set sweep of Marcela Zacarias and Giuliana Olmos (the latter in match #4, after a mid-day delay due to the funeral of Prince Philip) to clinch Team GB's win in the tie and avert a deciding doubles match.

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[SURPRISE]
Marcela Zacarias/MEX
...while Mexico lost the tie, world #285 Zacarius provided a truly charming (and winning) moment with her defeat of British #2 Watson (#68) in match #3, keeping hopes alive (however briefly) for an underdog push to a deciding doubles clash. Saying she was inspired by Maria Carle's upset of Elena Rybakina in the ARG/KAZ tie a day earlier, Zacarias' victory was just the second Top 100 win of her career and her first in six years.

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Match #3 - Marcela Zacarias/MEX def. Heather Watson/GBR 6-3/7-6(1)
...proving to this BJK Playoffs' epitome of what this competition is about, Zacarias has what could very likely end up being her career-best moment. It doesn't matter that it came in what turned out to be an "inconsequential" match in an ultimately losing effort for her team.

A few years ago, Ankita Raina upset Yulia Putintseva in a Fed Cup match that made the day, at the time, the most significant of her career. With the resulting boost of confidence, she's since gone on to produce her best results *outside* of Cup play. Zacarias could ultimately go on to do the same based on what she'll take from this one win. It's why some of the most interesting results in this competition have traditionally been the ones that take place "just beneath the final headline."

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Canada def. Serbia 4-0 / Kreljevo, SRB (HCI)
...no Andreescu or Bouchard? No problem. The newest teenage Canadian star, Monterrey champ Leylah Fernandez, ably filled the role of Teammate #1 for Canada in a road tie in Serbia that at least *seemed* as if it had a chance to be one decided by a razor-thin margin. Though many of the matches were competitive, that wasn't the case, as the Canadians never once blinked.

[MVP]
Leylah Fernandez/CAN
...having gotten her maiden FC win over Belinda Bencic in the February '20 qualifiers, Fernandez opened Canada's BJK play with a three-set victory over Olga Danilovic. With Canada up 2-0, she clinched the tie with a Day 2 comeback victory over Nina Stojanovic that only served to prove what we sort of already knew -- that if this team can ever get together a *full* squad it could be a legit threat for a SF/F/W run at the BJK Finals in Budapest (year TBD).

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[COMEBACK]
Rebecca Marino/CAN
...back in 2011, Marino made her FC debut in a tie against Serbia, getting a singles win over Aleksandra Krunic. Many years, retirement and injuries later, the now 30-year old was back in the mix (she went 0-2 in singles, and 1-0 in a dead doubles match, in '19). Her 6-4/7-6(6) match #2 victory over Stojanovic was her first singles win for Team Canada since that '11 tie, and the 2-0 lead it gave the squad on Friday proved to be too big a mountain for the Serbs to scale.

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Match #3 - Leylah Fernandez/CAN def. Nina Stojanovic/SRB 3-6/6-3/6-4
...with the teenager looking to clinch the tie, Stojanovic grabbed a 6-3/3-1 lead. Fernandez forced a 3rd set, where the Serb had a BP chance at 3-3. After the Canadian got the hold, Stojanovic dropped her serve a game later. Serving for the match, Fernandez's DF gave the break back, but she closed out the win with a break in game #10. Well, it wasn't *that* easy. It took a sixth MP to finish Stojanovic off, and that came after a 10+ minute break in the action before MP #5 due to a stoppage of play because of a lighting issue. The loss dropped Stojanovic to 1-5 in Cup singles play in 2020-21.
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[DOWN]
"Where in the World is... Alek-sanda Krunic?"
...if Krunic (aka the Serbian Good Luck Charm, aka The Bracelet) was available for singles, then Serbia rightly deserved its shutout fate in Kreljevo. The last remaining link to the Serbian Fed Cup glory days ('12 final) with Ivanovic and Jankovic, and the most accomplished leader for the national team in the post-AnaIvo/JJ era, Krunic went a combined 4-0 last year in zone play to help Serbia get into position to play for a spot in the '22 qualifiers, and had gone a combined 7-2 since 2019. If anything good has happened to Serbia in this team competition, Krunic has usually had a role, either as an understudy to "the greats" or as the unquestioned fiery leader of the "Bracelettes."

But Krunic didn't see the court in singles while Serbia's fate was being decided in this tie, as Stojanovic and Danilovic got the call. Neither won a match. Krunic wasn't a part of the action until the dead rubber doubles match that closed out the festivities. There, she and Ivana Jorovic fell 10-0 in a meaningless 3rd set super-TB loss that sealed Canada's 4-0 shutout.
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Latvia def. India 3-1 / Jurmala, LAT (HCI)
...the Latvian one-two punch of Alona Ostapenko and Anastasija Sevastova (who entered the weekend tied for the most singles victories for LAT in Cup play, w/ Ostapenko the most overall wins), as expected, proved to be far too much for India. But Ankita Raina wasn't just going to be ignored, Dan. [Note: no rabbits were harmed in the compiling of this tie recap.]

[MVP]
Anastasija Sevastova, LAT
...by dint of captain Adrians Zguns having Ostapenko take the opening match on Day 1, Sevastova was in position to play back-to-back singles matches to her younger teammate's one, getting the clinching win in match #3 on Saturday. While Ostapenko was forced to three sets by Raina, Sevastova finished off both Karmen Kaur Thandi and Raina in straights (though she had to win a 2nd set TB in the latter contest) to push her career Cup singles win total to a Latvia-best 19 (while Ostapenko is now one behind at 18, but still on top with 32 overall s/d victories).

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[SURPRISE]
Ankita Raina, IND
...the highest-ranked Indian woman in singles, Raina had the unenviable task of needing to somehow carve out a win against the ol' Latvian one-two in order to give her country even a Hail Mary (or maybe impending natural disaster?) of a chance in this tie. She didn't do it, but she *did* put some heat on both women. On Day 1, with the help of a number of assists (i.e. unforced errors) from Ostapenko, Raina nearly pulled a shocker in match #1, taking the 2nd set and forcing the Latvian to a 7-5 3rd. She took Sevastova to a 2nd set TB in match #3, but the veteran closed things out.

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Match #1 - Alona Ostapenko/LAT def. Ankita Raina/IND 6-2/57/7-5
...close, and yet so far.

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Ukraine def. Japan 4-0 / Chorwomorsk, UKR (RCO)
...Japan has a reigning slam champion, some of the best doubles players in the world, and two singles players who were willing to grind each other down to dust this past week in Charleston. But the UKR/JPN tie went forward with an *entire* team of competition first-timers for the nation. Not surprisingly, the Ukrainians were running with flags when it was all over.

[MVP]
Elina Svitolina/UKR
...playing at the site of her youth training, the Elite Tennis Club in Chorwomorsk, Svitolina led the Ukrainian squad to a shutout victory. She won the very first point, against the debuting Chihiro Muramatsu, in the newly-named Billie Jean King Cup competition on Friday en route to a 3 & 2 victory. With the match-clincher within reach, though, she was nearly tripped up by Yuki Naito in match #3. The 20-year old served for the match in the 3rd set before Svitolina broke and won a 7-3 TB to close out the tie, then talked of how confident she was that Ukraine can win the BJK Cup crown in the near future. Oh, if only *that* Svitolina showed up on a select four *other* occasions during the season, how different would her on-court narrative be by now?

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[FRESH FACE]
Marta Kostyuk/UKR
...though she was squarely in the shadow of Svitolina in this tie, Kostyuk's 3 & 3 win over Naito (a far more dominating victory than that of her teammate over the young Japanese player) improved her career Cup singles mark to 4-1.
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[DOUBLES]
Lyudmila & Nadiia Kichenok, UKR
...while the sisters' straight sets win over Akita/Sato in the Japanese duo's Cup debut occurred in a dead rubber that meant nothing, it's worth noting that although only the Williams and Chan sisters have ever won more tour-level doubles titles together than the Kichenoks' three, the Ukrainians had never won a Cup match together as a pair until Saturday. Before their tie-concluding 6-2/7-6(2) win, they'd gone 0-3 in FC play as a duo between 2010-18.
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Match #3 - Elina Svitolina/UKR def. Yuki Naito/JPN 6-2/4-6/7-6(3)
...against the world #172, Svitolina nearly saw her personal slam history jump the tracks and derail what was supposed to be a great moment for her and the Ukrainian team. Pushed to a 3rd set, she found herself down a break to Naito four times and her opponent serve for the match at 6-5. She rallied to win, but that was a little (too) close for comfort, under the circumstances, for a player *still* looking to turn a major corner in her career.

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Italy def. Romania 3-1 / Cluj-napoca, ROU (HCI)
...without Simona Halep or the specter (spectacle?) of the rabid Romanian fans in Cluj-Napoca, the home team had to generate its own internal willpower from scratch. Only one member of the team managed it, and she wasn't even *supposed* to play at all. Team Italia, without the nation's remaining Greatest Generation player (Errani) or the current national #1 (Giorgi) in attendance, had no such problem, as Tathiana Garbin's squad gave off a competitve glow that would have made the famed Quartet proud.

[MVP]
Elisabetta Cocciaretto/ITA
...Team Italia has been looking for a long-term leader for its Cup future since three-quarters of the Quartet (Pennetta, Schiavone, Errani and Vinci) retired. Top-ranked Italian Camila Giorgi was never ever going to be that, but that heroine may have been found in Generation PDQ up-and-comer Cocciaretto. The 20-year old filled the role of singles #1 with ease, downing Irina Maria Bara 1 & 4 to open the tie, then finished off the road win with a 7-5/7-6 clinching victory over Mihaela Buzarnescu in match #4. Her 2-0 mark improves Cocciaretto to 5-0 in her Cup singles career (all in the 2020-21 "season"), where she's yet to lose a set.

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[RISER]
Martina Trevisan/ITA
...if Cocciaretto was the stabilizing leader ("Pennetta") of this tie, then Trevisan was perhaps its battling heart ("Schiavone?") with her 3:07 match #2 win over Buzarnescu. The 2020 RG quarterfinalist's only previous Cup singles victory was a 2017 WG II Playoff win over Lee Ya-hsuan (12-10 3rd set), but the 27-year old put it all on the line (so much so that captain Garbin held her back in match #3 on Day 2) to give the Italians the ever-important 2-0 lead to end Friday, chipping away at the Cup-inexperienced Romanian team's confidence when it came to the reality of a Saturday comeback.

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[SURPRISE]
Gabriela Ruse/ROU
...filling the old Alexandra Dulgheru (or maybe Monica Niculescu?) role of Romanian emotional leader, Ruse was called upon by captain Niculescu herself to offer a lifeline to the team's hopes on Day 2. Down 2-0, Ruse replaced Bara (the highest-ranked roster player) and battled Jasmine Paolini, in for Trevisan after *her* 3-hour win on Day 1, to notch her first career Cup victory, 1-6/6-3/6-4, to keep hopes alive. Well, for a little while, at least.

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Match #2 - Martina Trevisan/ITA def. Mihaela Buzarnescu/ROU 6-2/2-6/7-6(5)
...Buzarnescu put up a fight here for over three hours, but dropped her fourth straight Cup match. After losing to Cocciaretto in straights in the clinching match #4, she made it five. Her last singles win for Team ROU was back in 2012. Hmmm, so maybe it wasn't a *great* move for her to be given such a large role in this tie?

I mean, you're probably only likely going to get one altering-the-course-of-her-history story (this time around: Arantxa Rus) per Cup week, right?
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Kazakhstan def. Argentina 3-2 [dd] / Cordoba, ARG (RCO)
...a typically Kazakhstani-style crazy tie. The visiting team had the big edge in depth, then took the early lead just to have the nation's only Top 25 player drop a love 3rd set in match #2 vs. the world #430. Said player returned a day later, saying it'd all been due to heat stroke, and posted a win. But then the team's most accomplished Cup player got within two points of clinching the tie victory before being taken down by cramping, losing to that very same #430-ranked player. In the end, Captain/Mama (in all senses of the word/words) Yaroslava Shvedova ultimately saved the day by inserting *herself* into the deciding doubles to finally calm the waters, effectively wiping the mouths of her babes and force-feeding them the victory. Whew!

[co-MVPs]
Anna Danilina/Yaroslava Shvedova, KAZ
...entering the tie, the thought was that if player/captain Shvedova got into this tie, her first since 2017, it would mean that something had gone horribly wrong for the KAZ team. Well...

No matter, the cagey vet arrived just in time to put herself into the heart of the live rubber mix, along with a trusty sidekick in Danilina (who improved to 4-0 in her Cup doubles career, with two deciding doubles wins), to burst out of the gate and take the 1st set at love from Maria Carle & Nadia Podoroska in the doubles. The Argentines held SP in the 2nd, but the Kazakh duo closed out a 7-5 set to take the road tie and prevent yet another Team KAZ mess from ruining yet another Cup endeavor.

Shvedova now has 25 career Cup wins, just three behind all-time Kazakhstan leader Galina Voskoboeva's 28. As long as Kazakhs remain Kazakhs in this competition, no matter how long she plays on tour, Shvedova might be needed to play the old Lleyton Hewitt Aussie Davis Cup team role and be ready to insert herself into the action (retirement or no retirement) whenever her efforts are needed. Voskoboeva's mark is likely within reach.

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[SURPRISE]
Maria Carle, ARG
...while she made her Cup debut in doubles back in 2016, and participated in zone play in February of last year, 21-year old Carle hadn't ever played singles for ARG in her career. She made up for lost time. The world #430 rocked the Kazakh team by upsetting #23 Elena Rybakina in match #2, setting the tone for what would be a wild Day 2 less than 24 hours later. There, she took down #30 Yulia Putintseva, staving off the Kazakh when she served for the match, getting within two points of clinching the tie in match #4, then won the 2nd set TB and saw her opponent retire due to severe cramping a few points into the 3rd. Had Carle, joined by Nadia Podoroska in the deciding doubles, been able to help pick up a *third* point in the tie she'd have gone down as having put forth one of the best breakout moments in Cup -- Fed or BJK -- history. But, for once, the Tennis Gods smiled on the victorious Kazakhs (or maybe smirked in their general direction) in the end.

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[DOWN]
Nadia Podoroska/ARG, Elena Rybakina/KAZ and Yulia Putintseva/KAZ
...the bigger they are, the harder they fall. The three top-ranked players in the tie went a combined 2-4, with both wins coming because they had to play each other.

In all, RG semifinalist Podoroska was the most disappointing, returning to Argentina to become the only player in the BJK Playoffs to play a part of all *three* of her team's defeats (i.e. pulling a "Reverse Frechesian," and you know how you feel the next morning after doing that). Podoroska had been 11-1 in her Cup singles career coming in, with seven straight singles wins (she last lost in '16).

Meanwhile, in her Cup debut, Rybkina lost to a player ranked 407 spots below her, going down in a bagel 3rd set vs. Carle and later complaining of heat stroke. She at least rebounded with a win over Podoroska on Day 2, but had she been better prepared on Day 1 she would have clinched the tie with her Saturday win and been *the* heroine of Cordoba.

Ah, but the 2021 Tennis Gods saved the cruelest fate (again) for Putinteva. Already having lost three times in matches this season in which she held MP, and losing another when she nearly did, the Kazakh already has a Cup history of shock losses or shockingly close wins. This tie was a redux of all that. After opening with a win over Podoroska (helped along by the Argentine's 37% 1st serve percentage in the 2nd set after she'd taken the 1st), Putintseva served for the tie-clinching win on Saturday vs. Carle, coming within two points of victory. But she didn't put the win away, started to cramp, asked for and got an off-court MTO *during* Carle's service game (ARG Captain Mercedes Paz didn't like that, needless to say... and neither would have Yulia had she been witnessesing it from that side of the net), came back and served underhanded because of the pain in her legs, lost the 2nd set TB, then fell to the ground a few points into the 3rd set and couldn't get back up, retiring to force the deciding doubles.

The team was bailed out by their captain, and Putintseva's one win did at least tie her (with fellow tie team members Shvedova and Zarina Diyas) for the most Cup singles wins (14) ever for KAZ. But, my oh my, has drama followed this team around over the years.

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Match #2 - Maria Carle/ARG def. Elena Rybakina/KAZ 6-4/3-6/6-0
...in Rybakina's King Cup debut, the #23-ranked Kazakh's trying '21 continued when she was upended by #430 Carle (in her singles debut) in what the Argentine called a "perfect match." Rybakina, who'd retired in her most recent tour match in Charleston (and gone 3-7 in her last 10 WTA outings), took a medical time out in the 3rd set, which she ultimately lost at love. Later, she said that she'd been suffering from heat stroke and felt better once she got back to her hotel room. Darn it, isn't that always the case?

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Netherlands def. China 3-2 [dd] / 's-Hertogenbosch, NED (RCI)
...it was a tie that was supposed to be about the comeback of Kiki Bertens (it was, for a day), but turned out to be about her Dutch teammate flipping her Cup career script on its head (in a good way) at the eleventh hour to send longtime NED captain Paul Haarhuis off into the sunset on a winning note one final time.

[MVP]
Arantxa Rus/NED
...13-year Cup vet (a NED record) Rus didn't seem a good bet to provide much to the Dutch effort in this tie. After all, Bertens (NED's best Cup player ever) was back, and Rus had lost six straight Cup singles matches, not posting a win since 2015. Her losing streak went to seven when she fell in three sets in match #2 to a debuting Wang Xiyu. When Bertens was unable to play on Day 2, the Netherlands seemed doomed, and when Lesley Pattinama Kerkhove fell to Wang Xiyu in Bertens' place in match #3, well, what's worse than "doomed" in Cup-speak? Whatever it is, the Dutch seemed just that.

But enter Rus. Shockingly, she became the heroine of the moment, arriving just in time to save the day.

Facing off with Wang Xinyu, Rus saw her younger opponent fall and hurt her knee, but then return to action, only to leave court for a second MTO, then return for a brief moment before retiring with Rus leading 6-4/4-3. Would Rus had won, ending her long losing streak, had Wang not gotten hurt? Who knows. But we *do* know that Rus soon after dusted off her racket again and joined Demi Schuurs to win the deciding doubles over Xu Yifan & Zhang Shuai (the latter finally called into action, while fellow CHN Top 2 Zheng Saisai *never* left the bench) in straight sets, completely changing the tenor of the discussion of her long Cup service.

In this competition, you just never know who's going to put on the cape.
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[COMEBACK]
Kiki Bertens/NED
...Bertens arrived sporting a winless (0-3) record in '21 after delaying the start of her year after offseason Achilles surgery. Right on cue, though, the Cup Beast in her came out as she downed 19-year old Wang Xinyu 6-2/6-0 to open the tie, improving her career singles mark in the competition to 21-2. A flair up of her injury overnight caused Haarhuis to pull her from her scheduled #3 slot in Day 2, nearly overturning the entire tie. She'll have to wait to tie Betty Stove for the all-time NED Cup singles win record (22), but Bertens showed in 's-Hertogenbosch that she's on her way back... and that she can still spray champagne with the best of them, even while relegated to hopping around on her one good foot.

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[FRESH FACE]
Wang Xiyu/CHN
...the 2018 U.S. Open girls champ, 20-year old Wang Xiyu made her mark in this tie, with her big shots helping to produce a 2-0 mark that nearly led an overthrow of the home team. Her three-set defeat of Rus on Day 1 kept China in the game, and her follow-up three-set victory over Kerkhove (subbing for the injured Bertens) -- a win despite squandering a 6-3/5-3 lead, then falling behind 3-1 in the 3rd -- suddenly put the Chinese squad in the driver's seat. Wang was set to wear the cape in this tie... but who'd have guessed that Rus would then erase six years of Cup frustration to lead the Dutch to victory?

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[DOUBLES]
Demi Schuurs/NED
...for all the tour-level doubles success Schuurs has had in recent years, she'd never recorded a significant WD win in Cup play for the Netherlands until this weekend. Before her deciding doubles victory on Saturday with Rus she'd lost four straight doubles matches for NED, including a deciding doubles match (w/ Bertens) vs. Sabalenka/Sasnovich in the FC Qualifiers in February '20 in a 3-2 loss to Belarus. Her most recent win *was* a big one, over the Williams sisters with Kerkhove in 2018, but it was in a dead rubber match in a 3-1 loss to the United States.

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Match #5 - Arantxa Rus/Demi Schuurs (NED) def. Xu Yifan/Zhang Shuai 6-1/6-4
...finally, the inclusion of a doubles specialist on a Cup roster pays dividends. Of course, this would happen more often if the doubles were moved to match #3 (ala the Davis Cup). Doubles will *finally* get the #3 slot in the BJK Finals round robin competition later this year, but that that part of the event will feature best-of-three-match ties (w/ no reason for a dead rubber match to be played at all) the doubles could end up being utilized even less.

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Captain Paul Haarhuis (NED) = "Oh, I *remember* how this feels... and I can take it with me as I go."
Captain Tathiana Garbin (ITA) = "Forzaaaaa!!! We might actually *have* something here."
Captain Yaroslava Shvedova (KAZ) = "MEMO TO ALL FUTURE KAZAKH KING CUP CAPTAINS: If you want to get something done, you have to do it yourself."
Captain Heidi El Tabakh (CAN) = "Bianca and Genie? Who dat?" [winks]
Captain Adrian Zguns (LAT) = "A one and a two, and a... nope, that's it. That's all we need."
Captain Anne Keothavong (GBR) = "No wonder everyone seems to be named 'Katie' around here!"
Captain David Celt (POL) = "When you're down an Iga, you rally around whichever Pole is handy in the month before May. Thank goodness for the sturdyness of one."
Captain Mikhail Filima (UKR) = "I like it that Elina is confident about our Cup chances, but I'd feel better about it -- considering I'll be the one replaced if we don't meet expectations -- if she'd proven elsewhere that such big words could be routinely backed up on a far more 'grand' stage than a team playoff tie. Hey, Backspinner person -- I'd *never* say that!! At least not in public
Captain Mercedes Paz (ARG) = "It's all a process, and I say we showed that we've made progress."
Captain Roberta Burzagli (BRA) = "I can honestly say that we gave it everything we had, but it wasn't enough. Next time it might be."
Captain Agustin Moreno (MEX) = "We fight. Give me Zarazua and we'll be a team to contend with in the Americas zone, year in and year out."
Captain Liu Shuo (CHN) = "I hope you recognize that the long-term development of the Wangs outweighs any questions about having the nation's top two players on the roster and not playing them. Of course, if the Wangs become "top players" one day they, too, will be relegated to the roles of spectator (from either near or far), so..."
Captain Vishal Uppal (IND) = "Quite frankly, we were just happy to be here. Thank you, Sania."
Captain Monica Niculescu (ROU) = "I can only do *so* much. But how'd you like that Ruse move... eh? Eh? Eh? Sigh."
Captain Toshihisa Tsuchihashi (JPN) = "Gimme an 'N,' gimme an 'A,' gimme an... oh, nevermind."
Captain Dusan Vemic (SRB) = [reading handwritten note he received from an anonymous individual while watching the dead rubber doubles match] "If you don't take your good luck charm out of your picket until the sun goes down, then you deserve what you get by the light of the day." [crumples up piece of paper and throws it into the stands]







*2020-21 BJK CUP FINAL NATIONS - 12*
Australia (2019 final)
Belarus (qualifier)
Belgium (qualifier)
Czech Republic (wild card)
France (2019 champion)
Germany (qualifier)
Hungary (host nation)
Russia (qualifier)
Slovakia (qualifier)
Spain (qualifier)
Switzerland (qualifier)
United States (qualifier)
-
NOTE: winner, runner-up, wild card and host nation automatically in '22 Finals
[advance to 2022 Qualifying Rd.- 8 PO Winners + 8 '21 Finalists]
Canada
Great Britain
Italy
Kazakhstan
Latvia
Netherlands
Poland
Ukraine
[fall to 2022 Zone I play]
Argentina
Brazil
China
India
Japan
Mexico
Romania
Serbia

*BACKSPIN FED CUP/KING CUP AWARDS*
*-non-title winning nation
[PLAYER OF YEAR]
2005 Elena Dementieva, RUS
2006 Francesca Schiavone, RUS
2007 Svetlana Kuznetsova, RUS
2008 Svetlana Kuznetsova, RUS
2009 Flavia Pennetta, ITA
2010 Flavia Pennetta, ITA
2011 Petra Kvitova, CZE
2012 Petra Kvitova, CZE
2013 Roberta Vinci, ITA
2014 Petra Kvitova, CZE
2015 Karolina Pliskova, CZE
2016 Caroline Garcia, FRA*
2017 CoCo Vandeweghe, USA
2018 Petra Kvitova, CZE
2019 Ash Barty, AUS*
[CAPTAIN OF YEAR]
2015 Amelie Mauresmo, FRA*
2016 Paul Haarhuis, NED*
2017 Kathy Rinaldi, USA
2018 Kathy Rinaldi, USA*
2019 Julien Benneteau, FRA
[FINALS MVP]
2002 Daniela Hantuchova, SVK
2003 Amelie Mauresmo, FRA
2004 Anastasia Myskina, RUS
2005 Elena Dementieva, RUS
2006 Francesa Schiavone, ITA
2007 Svetlana Kuznetsova, RUS
2008 Svetlana Kuznetsova, RUS
2009 Flavia Pennetta, ITA
2010 Flavia Pennetta, ITA
2011 Petra Kvitova, CZE
2012 Lucie Safarova, CZE
2013 Roberta Vinci, ITA
2014 Petra Kvitova, CZE
2015 Karolina Pliskova, CZE
2016 Barbora Strycova, CZE
2017 CoCo Vandeweghe, USA
2018 Katerina Siniakova, CZE
2019 Kristina Mladenovic, FRA






All for now.

posted by Todd.Spiker @ 2:20 PM 

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