Britain boosted by home Fed Cup qualifier

Women’s team tennis is returning to Great Britain for the first time in 25 years, after the Lawn Tennis Association volunteered to host the zonal stages of next year’s Fed Cup.

Bath University will be the venue for the tournament, to be staged from Feb 6-9, which is likely to pit the likes of Johanna Konta and Heather Watson against opponents of the calibre of Australian Open champion Caroline Wozniacki and the world No5, Elina Svitolina.

The last time Great Britain played Fed Cup matches at home was in 1993, in a similar zonal competition that threw up ties against Russia and Ukraine, among others. Clare Wood and Monique Javer were the singles players of the time with Ann Jones as captain.

This time, the former Fed Cup stalwart Anne Keothavong will be in charge. Keothavong said: “We’ve been envious of the Davis Cup team for a while, having that experience of competing in front of a home crowd. Ideally we wanted a home

In charge: Anne Keothavong hopes home support in Bath will lift British hopes tie against another nation but this is the next-best thing.

“It’s true that Jo and Heather aren’t in the place they would like to be, their rankings have fallen, but they both have excellent Fed Cup records. We also have a younger group, including Katie Boulter, Katie Swan and Gabby Taylor, who are improving all the time.”

The Fed Cup’s Europe/africa Zone Group One is a complicated beast, both to escape from and to explain. For the past couple of years, it has been held in Tallinn, Estonia. On both occasions, Great Britain managed to earn one of the two qualifying spots for a promotional play-off to the World Group but were rewarded with difficult away ties, in Romania and Japan respectively.

Bath will host one of the zonal qualifiers, featuring eight teams, while a venue in Poland takes care of the remaining seven. Each half of the competition will supply one winner to the promotional playoffs, which are expected to be held in the spring.