Aussies power past Slovaks
AJLA Tomljanovic powered Australia past Slovakia at the Billie Jean King Cup Finals with another dominant performance after Storm Sanders gave her country the perfect start.
Victories in both singles ensure Australia enters Thursday’s second and final group B clash with Belgium in Glasgow, Scotland knowing it will reach the semi-finals if it wins that tie.
“I think a lot of our players thrive in this environment,” Tomljanovic said.
“That kind of makes you want it even more when you’re part of a squad like that.
“For me, when I played in Perth for the first time (three years ago); it kind of opened my eyes that I never thought these weeks would mean so much to me.”
Australian captain Alicia Molik ignored the rankings when she picked Sanders for the all-important No.2 singles role, ahead of teammate Priscilla Hon. Sanders’ upset of then-top-20 Belgian Elise Mertens at this event last year was likely still fresh in Molik’s mind but most of the West Australian’s success this season was on the doubles court.
Australia had to win against Slovakia to keep alive its hopes of advancing from group play.
Sanders, whose singles ranking has slumped to No.237 after being as high as 127 in January, dropped serve in the seventh game against 146thranked Viktoria Kuzmova to be in danger of going a set down. But that moment proved the trigger for the 28-year-old left-hander to raise her level, revealing afterwards she told herself it was “now or never”.
Sanders broke an increasingly error-prone Kuzmova twice in the next three games to go 6-4 up before taking the second set 6-3.
“I feel like the fact that (Molik) picked me to play does give me a lot of confidence that she believed that I could deliver today,” Sanders said.
“That was my job to go out and try and get the win for the team and I achieved that, which is great.”
World No.33 Tomljanovic beat Slovakia’s top player Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in a 6-1, 6-2 demolition in 80 minutes. The Slovaks avoided a clean sweep when Kuzmova partnered Tereza Mihalikova to a 2-6, 6-3 (10-6) win over Sanders and Ellen Perez in the doubles.