KONTA CONFIDENT HOME COMFORTS CAN BOOST GB

PILES of snow on the ground outside, home support, no 3.15am finishes and not a seagull dropping in sight — this week should certainly be different to the Australian Open for Jo Konta. The British No 1 leads the home challenge in the Euro/Africa zonal group of the Fed Cup, which sees the latest attempt by Anne Keothavong’s team to reach the elite World Group of the women’s equivalent to the Davis Cup. It provides the opportunity for an upturn in what has been a turbulent start to the year for the British game. Bad news on the Andy Murray injury front, ensuing spats and early

exits in Melbourne mean that promotion come the weekend would be a welcome tonic. For Konta, it was a luxury to be able to drive down the M4 to an event, and it will be nothing like her bizarre, narrow loss to 2017 Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza last month. That early-hours performance, arguably her best tennis since Wimbledon 2017, was a high spot of last month. ‘I had to recover a couple of days after that. Obviously it’s worse if you lose a match than

if you win,’ she said, huddled inside yesterday at the University of Bath. ‘It was a bit odd. There were a lot of good things to take from the Australia trip. I had two great matches in Melbourne. Fed Cup is a bit different, the emotions, the vibe is very different.’ Eight teams have gathered in Bath and it is the first time in 26 years GB have appeared at home in an event comparable to this. There has been a string of away draws whenever this week’s host team have got within sight of promotion. Britain will play three round-robin matches on consecutive days, against the mixed bag of Slovenia, Greece and Hungary. If they emerge top of the group, they will play off on Saturday against the winners of the other group playing concurrently here. The biggest threat in the group stage is likely to come from Greece, who have world No 38 Maria Sakkari in their ranks. The best player on show in the other group is world No 25 Donna Vekic of Croatia, who has come straight from making the final of last week’s WTA event in St Petersburg. Konta, ranked 39, is likely to be supported in the second singles by Katie Boulter, who has risen to 83, with Heather Watson expected to fill one of the doubles berths.