1 month ago
Australian squad skipper Sam Stosur’s fears of a “funky” upset person been realised arsenic an understrength Great Britain sent Australia crashing retired of Billie Jean King Cup contention.
After nan visitors claimed some opening-day singles matches astatine Melbourne’s John Cain Arena, caller British doubles pairing Jodie Burrage and Harriet Dart completed a 3-0 rout successful nan best-of-five qualifying necktie connected Saturday.
Their 6-3, 6-4 triumph complete Storm Hunter and Ellen Perez gave Great Britain an unassailable lead, sending past year’s semi-finalists into to September’s finals successful China.
It is nan 2nd consecutive twelvemonth Australia person missed nan eight-nation finals.
Playing together for nan first time, Burrage and Dart recovered from an early break against their knowledgeable opponents and reeled disconnected 5 consecutive games to declare nan first set.
A see-sawing 2nd group could person gone either measurement earlier Burrage yet held service to seal nan result.
“We knew it was going to beryllium an incredibly reliable match,” Dart told Nine post-match.
“They’re 2 awesome players and they play a batch of doubles, and it was our first clip playing together.
“It’s a spot crazy really because we played beautiful well, didn’t we? But it’s specified an honour to correspond GB and to beryllium capable to make nan finals arsenic good is benignant of surreal.”
Australia had gone into nan necktie arsenic beardown favourites against a Great Britain squad missing their 4 champion players, pinch 3 of those opting to attraction connected nan European clay-court swing.
But rankings counted for small arsenic Dart led nan British charge.
The world No 173 upset Kimberly Birrell 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 successful their singles conflict connected Friday, building connected 17-year-old debutant Mika Stojsavljevic’s daze 7-6 (7-4), 7-5 triumph complete Talia Gibson.
Big-serving Stojsavljevic arrived successful Melbourne classed 219 places beneath world No 56 Gibson, who had knocked disconnected 5 top-20 opponents successful a sparkling tally of form successful nan lead-up.
At 2-0 down, Australia had nan weight of history against them connected Saturday.
Only 9 teams person ever travel backmost from 2-0 down to triumph since nan best-of-five format was introduced successful nan BJK Cup successful 1995.
The task proved excessively reliable for nan Australians arsenic Burrage and Dart vanished nan job.
Australian rising prima Emerson Jones was called up to return connected Katie Swan successful a dead-rubber singles lucifer connected her BJK Cup debut.
The 17-year-old, classed No 134 successful nan world, replaced Maya Joint successful nan squad aft nan top-ranked Australian pulled retired pinch a backmost injury.
