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GB face new challenge at Billie Jean King Cup and must beware underdog threat
The women's tennis tour takes a rare breather this week, with the frenetic pace of the calendar slowing down just enough to allow its players the luxury of a short international break. Four of Britain's top six female singles players and its top doubles player touched down in the Netherlands on Monday, a few days ahead of their Billie Jean King Cup qualifying round.
The quintet, led by captain Anne Keothavong, kick-start their 2025 campaign against Germany on Friday, before facing the host nation on Saturday. It's a simple format: six groups of three play this week, with the winners of each group advancing to the eight-nation Finals, held later this year in Shenzhen.
Defending champions Italy and Finals host squad China receive an automatic bye. (The wisdom of giving the latter, ranked 22nd in the world, a guaranteed spot is up for debate). For those finishing second or third in their qualifying ties, there's no reprieve. Everything rests on this week.
For GB, topping the group, and securing their tickets to Shenzhen, is a realistic goal. Britain are ranked seventh in the Billie Jean King Cup rankings, four places above Germany and ten above the Netherlands. They also have the two highest-ranked singles players in the tie in world No. 40 Katie Boulter and in-form No. 60 Sonay Kartal. The latter made the fourth round at Indian Wells last month, and would make her BJK Cup debut should she play this week.
Keothavong had intended to bring an even stronger squad to the Hague, with British No. 2 Emma Raducanu – now back in the top 50 – withdrawing from the team to 'look after her body'. Her exit means a return to BJK Cup action for Jodie Burrage, a talented player who has dropped to 175th in the world after wrist surgery and an ankle injury kept her out of action for most of 2024. Completing the squad are Keothavong's likely first-choice doubles pairing of Harriet Dart and specialist Olivia Nicholls, who has been in fine form, recently reaching the women's doubles final in Indian Wells.
Their opponents this week are both solid teams without any particular standout names (spare a thought for Slovakia and Denmark, who have to face world America's world No 3 Jessica Pegula and former top-tenner Danielle Collins). Eva Lys, who shot to fame with her run to the fourth round of the Australian Open in January as a lucky loser, and seemed as if she couldn't quite believe the whole experience wasn't a mad dream, leads the line for Germany. 70th-ranked Suzan Hermans, two places below Lys, is the Netherlands' highest-ranked singles player.
The Dutch have a particular threat in doubles specialist and highest-ranked player Demi Schuurs, who was one-half of the team responsible for denying Nicholls a maiden WTA 1000 title in Indian Wells last month. Germany have the tricky, crafty duo of veteran Tatjana Maria and BJK Cup stalwart Laura Siegemund, the latter out for revenge after a 6-1, 6-2 hammering by Boulter in the Finals six months ago.
The GB camp have looked in high spirits during their training in the Hague this week (Getty Images for LTA)
But the pressure is on GB as the favourites, and even with that tag, the joy – and the frustration – of the Billie Jean King Cup is that it often doesn't go to form, or according to expectations.
Boulter has had limited match time so far this season after a foot injury at the Australian Open kept her out for the next two months, and recently lost in the first round in Miami. The absence of Raducanu is another concern, with the 22-year-old often seeming to find her best tennis playing in national colours.
She went unbeaten in her five BJK Cup matches last year, including a star turn on the French clay to advance to the Finals. At the time of her withdrawal from the squad – she opted for a training block instead after an intense spring of matches – she was also in some of the best form since her unexpected US Open triumph in 2021, with a run to a first-ever WTA 1000 quarter-final in Miami and a first top-ten win on hard courts under her belt.
GB were narrowly beaten by Slovakia in the semi-finals last year (Getty Images for LTA)
There's also the small matter of this tie being fought, once again, on indoor clay. Notwithstanding that inspired performance in Bercy last year, it's a surface that has proved tricky for generations of Brits. The timing of this international window, at the very beginning of the clay season, also means the squad has had little time to adapt from hard courts, especially for those like Nicholls and Kartal who enjoyed deep runs in California.
But morale should be high in the camp as they aim to put the disappointment of last November's Finals behind them, after a narrow 2-1 loss to Slovakia in the last four. Slovakia's whole-team performance in that victory demonstrated that a well-rounded, well-drilled team can be more of a threat than a couple of star names. GB will look to combine the best of both this week – and book those flights to Shenzhen.
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'Last year, I was rushing to get back from knee surgery to make it to the Paris Olympics then almost immediately, I felt like I was constantly fighting against time to be ready for the London Marathon. 'So this is the first time ever that I've felt like okay, I've ticked my box for the year and so if I do another marathon in 2025 then great but if I don't then it doesn't actually matter. "It's now up to me what I want to do for the rest of the year instead of feeling like I'm constantly rushing to get ready for the next championship and running out of time. 'It means I now feel the least pressure I've felt during my whole career, and that's really, really nice.' (Image: PA) From the outside, McColgan's run in London was something close to a dream marathon debut; an eighth-place finish, top British female and a new Scottish record of 2 hours 24 minutes 25 seconds was an impressive performance. 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'So I feel like I'm in a great position.'
The National
an hour ago
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Eilish McColgan: I've run a marathon, now I feel pressure-free
Firstly, she can finally call herself a marathon runner. And secondly, she'll almost certainly never tackle a marathon that challenges her as much as her debut did. McColgan has a stellar record on both the track and the road, but having decided she was going to move up to the marathon, it took her literally years to reach the start line. A number of injuries, including knee surgery in late-2023, served to delay and further delay her marathon debut. But finally, at the London Marathon in April of this year, McColgan ran her first marathon. And from almost the second she crossed the finish line, a wave of relief crashed over McColgan and she's spent the past weeks basking in a pressure-free state that she's never before experienced in the entirety of her decade-long elite career. 'This is the first time in my career I'm in no rush to get back into things. It's nice not to feel that intense pressure or stress because so often, I've been rushing to get ready for the next thing,' the 34-year-old says. 'Last year, I was rushing to get back from knee surgery to make it to the Paris Olympics then almost immediately, I felt like I was constantly fighting against time to be ready for the London Marathon. 'So this is the first time ever that I've felt like okay, I've ticked my box for the year and so if I do another marathon in 2025 then great but if I don't then it doesn't actually matter. "It's now up to me what I want to do for the rest of the year instead of feeling like I'm constantly rushing to get ready for the next championship and running out of time. 'It means I now feel the least pressure I've felt during my whole career, and that's really, really nice.' (Image: PA) From the outside, McColgan's run in London was something close to a dream marathon debut; an eighth-place finish, top British female and a new Scottish record of 2 hours 24 minutes 25 seconds was an impressive performance. And given the way the race panned out - McColgan was forced to run almost the entirety of the 26.2 miles alone - the Dundonian appeared to be coping admirably with her maiden marathon run. Appearances can be deceiving, though, and how she appeared to spectators could not have been more contrasting to how she felt. 'From very early in the race, I felt rough. Literally as soon as I started running, I was concerned about how heavy my legs felt and that's obviously a big worry when you've got 26 miles to go,' she says. 'That feeling didn't ever really go away and if anything, it just gradually got worse so mentally I found that tough. I knew it was going to be a very long slog, and it was made even harder given I was running by myself because I had never visualised doing the whole race solo. 'I definitely had moments of thinking of stopping. From halfway, I had cramp in my right quad so in my head I was just telling myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other. 'So I honestly don't think I'll ever run a marathon that feels as hard as that again. 'It wasn't until I got in that last half mile stretch heading on to the Mall that I actually believed I was going to be able to finish.' Despite her struggles throughout the two-and-a-half hours of the race, though, McColgan admits her first marathon experience was something she'll treasure. Despite having raced on the biggest stages of them all - she's a four-time Olympian and produced one of the most memorable moments of the Commonwealth Games in 2022 when she won 10,000m gold - the experience and the atmosphere of her debut marathon was, she admits, unique. 'London was very different from track racing because people were cheering specifically for me. I could hear people shouting 'Go Eilish', people were shouting my mum's name or were shouting Dundee Hawks. It was very different from the Commonwealth Games when it was very noisy but you can't pick out what people are saying. The crowd was the only thing that kept me going.' Eilish McColgan won 10,000m gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games (Image: Steve Christo - Corbis) On seeing her finishing time, McColgan's initial feeling was disappointment. She had bettered Steph Twell's previous Scottish record by over two minutes, and her own mum, Liz's, by two-and-a-half minutes. McColgan was, she thought, in shape to go faster but as the weeks since the race have passed, she's begun to realise that finally making her marathon debut after two heavy disrupted years of injury, and battling to the finishing line feeling far from perfect is a remarkable achievement. 'I've been trying to get on the start line of a marathon for two years and it had never happened so of course there was a little bit of doubt in my own mind wondering if it's going to happen,' she says. 'So, on reflection, I'm really proud of finishing it because it would have been much easier to have called it a day early doors.' There is, unsurprisingly, a number of things McColgan will take from her run in London into her upcoming training, and into future marathons. The Scot will focus almost exclusively on the road going forwards and while she remains uncertain quite when her next marathon appearance will be, she's sure of what she wants to achieve on her hermit outing over 26.2 miles. 'Sub 2 hours 20 minutes is a big goal - that's when you start becoming more competitive and giving yourself a chance of being on the podium at the major marathons,' she says. 'I definitely feel like 2:20 could potentially be the next step for me given how tough London felt so next time, if I could feel normal until halfway, I think that would make a big difference to me and to my time. 'I don't know exactly where my next marathon will be but the great thing is there's a major marathon every few weeks so if I aim for Berlin but amn't quite ready, I can push it back to New York or Chicago or even London next year. 'So I feel like I'm in a great position.'
South Wales Guardian
an hour ago
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