As a blatant outsider, Austria will go into the qualifying round for the Billie Jean King Cup by Gainbridge Finals 2023 against the USA in Delray Beach on Friday (from midnight CEST and Saturday from 8 p.m. CEST, each in the stream on www.oetv.tv).
Last Saturday, the team around ÖTV Billie Jean King Cup captain and sports coordinator Marion Maruska arrived with support staff and Barbara Haas.
Julia Grabher came directly from the WTA tournament in Charleston, Sinja Kraus and Melanie Klaffner traveled on from the WTA event in Bogotá, Tamira Paszek had previously flown to the US state of Florida.
Maruska is happy about a pleasant reception
ÖTV sports director and Davis Cup captain Jürgen Melzer also landed overseas on Monday evening and joined the team. Career highs and top form: The basic requirements are right, “We have been received very nicely here, everything fits,” reported Maruska after the first few days on site.
“We have our own contact person here who takes care of everything if we need anything. Usually it’s just little things, but every wish is fulfilled.” Meanwhile, the preparations are in full swing: “We trained for the first time on Sunday, when the weather was nice. On Monday it was really difficult because it was so windy and it rained again and again. We were still able to train twice as planned, but it was really difficult to play this time.”
The first impressions of the Delray Beach Tennis Center are nevertheless very positive: “They have a total of five hard courts here, two of which are set up like the center court. So the USA has a fixed training ground all day and so do we. The center court can only be played on from Tuesday, there is still work to be done on it. But it’s a great court, really huge” – after all, the stadium offers space for 4,000 spectators. Billie Jean King, who gave the national competition its name, is also expected to be there on the match days.
The two best ÖTV women go into the international competition week with new career high rankings. With her two victories and reaching the round of 16 at the WTA 500 event in Charleston, Grabher played number 78 in the top 80 in the world for the first time, Kraus knocked loudly after her WTA main draw premiere victory at the 250 tournament in Bogotá as number 153 in the top 150. So the form is perfect.
An impression that has also been confirmed in training so far: “It was perhaps a bit more difficult to judge because of the adverse weather conditions, but I have the feeling that our women hit the ball very well and are in excellent form,” said Maruska confidently, to be able to stand up to the USA It will also need to be in top form, as the USA can muster the world’s number three and six, Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff.
With two players in the top six, the US ladies, who by the way didn’t train on site on Mondays, last competed in an international match in 2005.
US ladies with kenin instead of keys
However, the form seems to be right for the hostesses as well. Pegula was only stopped in the semifinals in Charleston, which due to the weather could not be held until Sunday, the final day. Danielle Rose Collins, number 39, currently the fifth best singles player in the country, also won the doubles competition in the US state of South Carolina.
However, the USA made a change in the squad: Madison Keys (WTA 21), nominally the third strongest player in their nation, was replaced by Sofia Kenin (WTA 134), the recently injured Australian Open winner and French Open finalist 2020
The US tennis association USTA did not give an official reason for this, but the effects are likely to be only marginal anyway, since Kathy Rinaldi’s team is likely to rely on their top duo Pegula / Gauff anyway. “They have a very strong team one way or the other – we are of course complete underdogs,” Maruska was clear. But the dream of making Goliath USA stumble for the third time in a row after 2002 and 2004 remains intact. “We will definitely do everything we can,” affirmed the Lower Austrian.
LAOLA1 TV
to the TV program
