The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Ilie Nastase defies ITF ban for behaviour at Fed Cup clash
Great Britain’s Fed Cup play-off against Romania ended with the hosts victorious but bad blood between the teams after a turbulent weekend.
Victories for Simona Halep over Johanna Konta and Irina-Camelia Begu against Heather Watson clinched the tie for Romania before Laura Robson and Jocelyn Rae won a consolation doubles rubber to make the final score 3-2.
But this is not a tie that will be remembered for the tennis.
The controversy appeared to be largely over after Romania captain Ilie Natase was barred following his foulmouthed meltdown on Saturday – although he did flout that to make a brief appearance at Tenis Club IDU yesterday.
But the Romanian players let it be known how aggrieved they were at the claims by Konta that she had felt threatened by the crowd in Constanta during her match against Sorana Cirstea.
After Nastase was sent off the court, his parting shot of a shout at Konta and Great Britain captain Anne Keothavong, the British No 1 became tearful during the following game and play was suspended.
On the resumption more than 20 minutes later, Konta won five games in a row and the match.
The 25-year-old said what she had experienced would take time to get over and that it had affected her in her 6-1 6-3 defeat by Halep.
Konta said: “There’s obviously an effect that yesterday had on me. However, it has to be about the tennis and I gave my best today with what I had but Simona was better than me.
“I think it’ll be something I’ll do my best to overcome and to just understand.”
Cirstea was the first to question Konta’s version of events after the match on Saturday, with the main objection that play was stopped not at 2-1 in the second set following Natase’s unpleasant outburst but after the Romanian had won the next game.
And she was backed up by Halep and Begu.
Halep was clearly fired up in front of her home town crowd and took great delight in an unexpectedly one-sided victory.
She said: “I had extra motivation because in my opinion the public was very fair yesterday. They didn’t say anything bad, they just were supporting us.”
Begu added: “Johanna said that at 3-1 she was feeling threatened by someone.
“After, to the referee, she said the problem was because Ilie said what he said so, if Ilie said that, it was at 2-1. Then she starts crying after one game?
“Like Sorana said, we’ve been to countries and I played with a home girl, and everybody was screaming. I didn’t start to cry.
Konta felt the Romanians did not fully appreciate the circumstances, saying: “With all due respect to Sorana, she wasn’t on my side of the court, she didn’t feel verbally threatened, she wasn’t in my shoes.”