I would prefer home and away single ties myself.

Argh. Romania draw Serbia. One of those teams will be back in our group next year.

The other 3 european teams (Sweden, Switzerland and Netherlands) all have a good chance at staying in WGII

We have dropped 3 places to 20th in the new Fed Cup rankings, which is what I expected (at least, it's what I estimated when someone asked me on Twitter at the weekend) but it turns out that win against Austria made a BIG difference - the scores are so bunched in the low 20s that we'd have ended up in 26th had we lost!

Right here we go, here are my brief observations of team GB, player by player, we were mostly supporting courtside so we got quite a good insight on the positives and the negatives of each player.

Hev : Still without doubt dealing with the lingering effects of GF, from time to time you can still see the tiredness in her eyes. She'll say she's fine if you ask her directly but its clear although she's heaps better, there are clear signs of more fatigue than usual. During matches, especially at the start of matches oddly, she appears really flat, and often trudges back to receive or serve looking like she's just run a marathon, certainly not on her toes. But she showed an ability on a number of occasions to up her game and rattle off a series of points/games. It really does give you so much pride watching her fight through this period of her career, knowing that's she still not 100% but achieving magnificent results. Against Cirstea it was clear the Romanian didn't like playing against her, and she basically invited Hev back into the 1st set by some poor play, what was more remarkable was that even when Hev should have won that 1st set, she was able to come out of the blocks at the start of the second and play some unbelievable stuff. Cirstea was wounded before she was actually wounded with the injury. However Cirstea during the 3rd set started to overcome the injury moving much much better. Then we had the critical point of the match at deuce 3-3. Hev served a double, then checked the ball and found it was flat, she alerted the umpire who then decided that the ball was actually broken, and called for the point to be replayed. The Romanians went ballistic and called for the British referee, who correctly upheld the decision. Cirstea lost it a bit for long enough for Hev to take advantage. Hev played Ok in the doubles, but wasn't at her best.

Jo : Not at her best, but her comeback against the Latvian player was truly magnificent and probably the highlight of the week. She mostly struggled against Halep after an encouraging start. She then took the court against Babos, taking on a very partisan home crowd, and simply revelled in the situation playing perfect tennis until the critical part of the 2nd set. Tentative when serving for the set, then presented with a 5-1 lead in the TB ( Babos a little unlucky to be down that score), Babos responded as she can with a couple of huge serves and groundies to put Jo under real pressure at 5-4( crowd baying for Jo to crack). Then sadly Jo imploded and basically handed the next 3 points to Babos. A poor quality final set then followed with Jo hampered with a groin injury and both players making plenty of errors.

Tara : Fed Cup is made for Tara, she absolutely loved it. Arguing with the umpire on several occasions about poor calls, and basically pulling faces, gesticulating etc., etc., and also striking the ball imperiously. Fast and on her toes, big positive for the future. A lady for the big occasion.

Joss : Struggled a little early on to bridge the gap between 25k/10k level to this level, but played very well with Tara in a scratch pairing. Lovely charming young lady, who was so easy to chat to, never really had the chance to speak to her in the past. Assuming the foot problem doesn't hinder her, would love to see her get deep into the top 100 WTA rankings in the years to come. Very nifty around the net for a tall lady.


The general feeling, was maybe a little less upbeat than at Boras, I think losing Laura to injury and drawing Romania was a big downer.
But you always get full value supporting them, because they leave everything on the court. Met Michael Downey as well, and he couldn't be more of an opposite to Roger, jeans and a tshirt guy/approachable, and leading the cheerleading at times from the side of the court.

philwrig wrote:

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tony_orient wrote:

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Nice to know that last victory meant something, as it makes our overall tournament seem more positive. We will probably be seeded 3 or 4 for the tournament next year, but the Serbia v Romania result in particular will have a big bearing on how the seedings play out.

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 Did you catch match point on your way out ?!

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 Sort of - I saw the handshake from the opposite corner of the arena. Almost perfect timing, of course I would have booked my taxis for 5 minutes later if I'd known.