ROSAMUND wrote:

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Ace Ventura wrote:

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USA lead Latvia 2-0. Kenin seemingly routined Sevastova, and Serena won 7-6 7-6 against Ostapenko. It's Kenin vs Ostapenko at 11.30pm tonight in the 3rd rubber.

 

Spain vs Japan starting in 20 mins, but Japan have replaced Osaka with Nara to face Saurez Navarro, so it's even more difficult to see Japan coming back now, so almost certainly no Osaka in Hungary.

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 Suarez Navarro won her match to give Spain a 3-0 winning lead so rest of the matches cancelled. Talking of big names is there not some way in which Maria Sharapova could not play for Russia assuming Russia get to Budapest. She is after all one of the biggest names in tennis! In reality how many spectators  globally are likely to travel  to Budapest?  It's not going to be as popular as the Davis Cup was.  It's not like Hungary has the equivalent of a Nadal or even the vast number of top 100 players that the Czech Republic has.If GB fails to qualify how much interest will there in this country?  Where does all the vast sums of prize money actually come from unless there is a money tree out there somewhere?

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Im really not sure where the money has come from for Hungary to host it, but the location could help more external fans attending with Czech, Slovakia, Germany, and Switzerland all nearby, that's assuming some of those hold on to their leads, but yeah, Hungary did seem like a surprise host, and don't really offer much tennis-wise at the moment. I'm watching a lot of the matches on Bet365 and there does seem to be a healthy contingent of away fans in a lot of the ties - GB obviously brought a few yesterday, and there's a fair few Belarus fans in the Netherlands, so hopefully that transfers to the finals as well.

All things even, Prague would have been ideal, as they always seem to get good crowds for their Fed Cup match, and WTA Prague, plus the Laver Cup was packed for the first edition, and it of course has the same geographical advantages of Hungary, but also a raft of top players. Their WC could then have gone elsewhere, like say to USA, and you then wouldn't have had a weak nation like Hungary being guaranteed one of the 12 places.

I can't really see Sharapova wanting to play to be honest, she seems to struggle enough as it is to consistently play the big WTA events, plus while no obvious outstanding or 'star' player, Russia do have a solid group of top 50 players now, who sadly will offer more (on the court anyway) than this version of Sharapova would.

I'd image general interest would be pretty minimal in the UK if we don't turn it around today, and I'd be concerned about TV rights as well, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it all works out.

Switzerland 3 Canada 1 (so no Andreescu in Hungary)

Brazil 0 Germany 3

So we have 7 of the 12 confirmed - Hungary, Czech Rep, France, Australia, Spain, Switzerland, Germany.

USA 2-0 up

Belgium 2-1 up

Russia 2-1 up

Netherlands 2-1 up

And our tie of course. It would be nice if one or two of the ties went to the deciding rubber (GB hopefully...)

Edit - Belgium 3-1, so they also book their place, but 2-2 between Netherlands and Belarus, so that's going the distance, and it's looking like Romania-Russia will follow, as Christian is surprisingly a set and 5-2* up against Kudermerova.

the addict wrote:

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Ace Ventura wrote:

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I think you're being a bit optimistic there. Heather has made a great start and should hopefully win this ...

 

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 I'd be very dissapointed of she doesn't !

6-0

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 Haha true, I think it was just the 3 when I was typing out. The Slovak is on the board at least for her sake, but should really be plain sailing from here, you'd like to think.

I see they have hawk eye on the clay in the Netherlands-Belarus tie. Not sure if I've seen that before.

Spain and Japan did play a doubles which Japan won. Score then 3-1 to Spain.