SAY IT AIN’T SO, JO
GB skipper fears ‘quirky’ Konta will snub return bid
DefeATeD fed Cup captain Anne Keothavong had an air of resignation as she considered her chances of persuading the ‘quirky’ Jo Konta to rejoin the team for their next match.
Great Britain face a relegation tie in April after losing 3-1 to Slovakia, with Konta training at roehampton’s National Training Centre last week rather than sliding around the indoor clay that proved predictably tricky for a weakened visiting team.
Keothavong would love to have her star asset back, but does not expect Konta to reverse the decision to skip representative play this year.
‘When she makes up her mind she tends to stick to it,’ said the captain, who gave an insight into the British No 1’ s singular nature.
‘Jo is different, she is quirky, but when it comes to her tennis you know what you are going to get. She leaves it all out there.
‘Maybe I need a few tips on the art of persuasion.’
She added that the team had not heard from their star player during the match, which also saw them unable to call on the services of Katie Boulter.
Keothavong again demonstrated her ability to drag strong performances out of her players in the valiant efforts of Harriet Dart, who played so well for someone with little clay court experience.
The two-day match — which now sees Slovakia go through to April’s new £13.8million finals week — was a familiar story of a British team lacking depth and struggling on the brown dirt.
It makes it all the more baffling how the lTA have dug up existing clay courts at its roehampton HQ and replaced them with facilities for padel, an entirely different form of the sport.
‘A good question,’ responded Keothavong when asked about the subject, also pointing out it was above her pay grade. ‘I’ve never played padel.’
There are, in fact, high-quality replacement clay courts going in at roehampton but getting rid of any at all is symptomatic of the cultural problem the British game has with the surface that is best to learn on.
for all the enormous numbers of back-up staff provided by the lTA on these trips, British teams getting tripped up in clay-court matches is an age-old problem unlikely to be resolved fast.
And even with such a hefty support crew there was still nobody aware on Saturday of the likelihood that Slovakian No 1 Viktoria Kuzmova would pull out of the reverse singles, although travelling media were aware of the situation two hours before it happened. Ultimately Heather Watson’s victory over her replacement minimised any embarrassment over this.
And so British tennis heads into the relative shallows of february and early March after a broadly unspectacular start to the season, aside from a decent showing in the new ATP Cup.
Players will head to the hard courts around the world. Men’s No 1 Dan evans plays this week in rotterdam, one of the events from which Andy Murray has withdrawn as he recovers from ‘pelvic bruising’.