TRIUMPH IN DEFEAT
The British team struggled to contain their emotions after coming so close to edging their Billie Jean King Cup semi-final against Australia in Glasgow yesterday. ‘It really is a fantastic achievement to reach the semi-finals, but we felt we could have gone further,’ admitted captain Anne Keothavong after consoling devastated Alicia Barnett (above) following her loss alongside Olivia Nicholls in the deciding doubles. ‘That’s why it hurts so much.’
CAPTAIN Anne Keothavong was right to praise her heartbroken team, but justice was probably done as Great Britain agonisingly missed out on the Billie Jean King Cup final.
Unlikely stars of the week Alicia Barnett and Olivia Nicholls came within a deciding tiebreak of pulling them through against Australia, only to fall fractionally short.
The host nation were consigned to a 2-1 defeat when the team’s rookie doubles duo fell 7-6, 6-7, 10-6 to the vastly more experienced Storm Sanders and Samantha Stosur.
With Britain only playing this week courtesy of a late host-nation wildcard, having lost in April’s qualifying round, there could be few complaints about the eventual outcome.
Neither could there be with the efforts of the home players, who again largely performed above expectations. They were roared on by the best crowd of the week at the Emirates Arena of 4,000.
Barnett and Nicholls looked set to take direct home interest all the way when they clinched a second set tiebreak, carrying the momentum into what would be a sudden death first-to-ten super breaker.
They reached 6-6 in that, only for Nicholls to be called for a foot fault — probably correctly — and she went on to lose the point.
Hope remained as former US Open champion Stosur was now serving, and she had been very much the weakest link. It was Sanders — whose name will change to Storm Hunter when she gets married later this month — who had been the best player on the court.
Yet, at the death, Stosur pulled out two excellent serves and guided her team home under pressure, leaving them to face Switzerland, who overcame the Czech Republic in last night’s second semi-final.
It is a measure of how much Barnett and Nicholls have improved that they were able to live with the Australians, even though they were often second best in the opener.
Stosur once beat Serena Williams in a US Open final (2011), while Sanders has emerged as one of the world’s top doubles player and is currently ranked No10. It was a tribute to the British duo that an onlooker would not have known there was such a difference in pedigree between them.
It is hard to believe that GB would have performed much better if there had been a fit and available Emma Raducanu, whose status was a major reason why the Lawn
Tennis Association offered to stage the event in Glasgow this week.
Her team having looked down and out after their opening defeat to Kazakhstan, Keothavong can look back with satisfaction on how she managed to marshal the resources that remained.
As against Spain, Dart excelled, suggesting she ought to be ranked higher than her current listing of 98.
Her 7-6, 6-2 victory over world No33 Ajla Tomljanovic — who ousted Williams at Flushing Meadows in September — was another performance which underlined what an excellent competitor she is.
The serve may not be the most potent on tour but her groundstrokes were more than a match for the tough Australian, whose spirit appeared to be broken halfway through the second set.
She had taken advantage of a slightly wayward start from her opponent, and then stood toe-to-toe with her when Tomljanovic raised her level to that which is more accustomed.
‘I think my level has always been there. It’s just about putting it together at the right moments,’ said Dart, who recently split with coach Nigel Sears.
‘Also the consistency. Everyone can play a good match, but it’s about week in, week out, being able to back it up.
‘It was an incredibly physical match. I knew that going in, and I also know that I can be out there for five hours and feel fine. It was more about keeping my head. At 5-2, I did take my foot off the gas a little bit, and you know you can’t do that against players like her. I just played a better tiebreak than her.’
The match which actually looked the most likely to go the home team’s way was that of Watson against Sanders, even though the Australian has been in excellent form all week.
Watson has a higher ranking and the better track record in singles, and there was every reason to think she would get GB off to a winning start.
Sanders, however, is superior to her singles rank of 237 with an awkward southpaw game. The Channel Islander, whose serve never got going, looked to be turning things round after holding on in the second set, but subsided 7-3 in the tiebreak, rounding off a 6-4, 7-6 defeat.
Overall the progress of the home team can be considered a bonus for an event which, with an unenviable date and at a difficult time for the economy, was never likely to pull in a bumper attendance, especially with some late withdrawals.