« TENNIS: KONTA BLOW FOR BRITAIN
Jo says she won’t play in Fed Cup
Fed Cup captain Anne Keothavong will hope bad news does not come in pairs after Jo Konta told her that she will not be playing for Great Britain next month.
Konta was GB’s top player when the women’s team got promoted in 2019 and Keothavong could be missing her other key performer, Katie Boulter, as well.
Both have had injury problems, the latter’s directly attributable to her Fed Cup match at London’s Copper Box in April when GB beat Kazakhstan. Boulter was not seen again until the end of the season due to a stress fracture in her back. That injury also led to the most controversial episode of her young career when she went to paris to pick up half her first-round prize money at the French Open — £20,000 — before withdrawing.
Yesterday Konta, 28, declared that she would not be in Bratislava for the play- off match against Slovakia that could lead to a place in the revamped World Group finals to be played in Budapest. Boulter will make a decision after she has finished at the Australian Open, which will be the first Grand Slam she has played in a year.
Konta admitted the decision was not purely down to the sore knee she has been nursing ahead of Monday’s start. ‘It’s kind of a combination of things. It’s an Olympic year this year, I’m looking to schedule things slightly differently for the longevity of my body and to be able to come back in following years and play Fed Cup.’
Boulter, 23, said: ‘I’m going to see how my body is, clearly I haven’t played that many matches yet. I need to play more and I’ll make a decision after.’
A complication is that the Slovaks are planning to host the tie on an indoor clay court, an awkward surface transition on the weekend after the Australian Open. But with women’s sports gaining ground across the uK, it is a blow for tennis that Britain’s best player will not be present in the game’s premier female team event.
Keothavong had little choice but to accept the decision and is aware that Konta has, broadly, a good participation record.
‘It’s unfortunate that Jo has decided to make herself unavailable for Fed Cup this year,’ she said. ‘I had a productive conversation with her before Christmas when she explained what a difficult decision it was. We hope she will be available for future Fed Cup ties.’
Happier news for British women’s tennis came yesterday when Middlesex’s Harriet dart came through qualifying to boost the overall GB singles contingent here to seven. She beat Italy’s Giulia Gatto-Monticone 6-3, 6-1 and was waiting to be placed in the main draw. She will surely do better than her 6-0, 6-0 wipeout against Maria Sharapova a year ago. Heather Watson’s run at the WTA event in Hobart ended with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 defeat by elena Rybakina in the last four.
Both Konta and Boulter admitted concerns about the air quality in recent days, although yesterday it was again perfectly clear. Neither suggested they would decline to play if things got worse again, although at player meetings among both men and women yesterday the subject was debated.
The tournament yesterday published, belatedly, an official policy of what will constitute unplayable conditions according to their preferred air measures.
Boulter said: ‘We need to keep this in perspective. people are losing their homes and their lives. I’m sure the medical staff are doing their best for the tournament.’