BJK Cup withdrawals 'a tennis, not a player, problem'
Great Britain captain Anne Keothavong says the lack of top-20 players at the Billie Jean King Cup is "a tennis problem, not a player problem".Only three of the world's top-20 will compete in this week's qualifying rounds, with Poland's Iga Swiatek and American trio Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff and Madison Keys among those absent.World number two Swiatek withdrew last week, saying she needed time to "focus on myself and my training". Britain, meanwhile, are without Emma Raducanu, who has opted to train and "look after her body" after her Miami Open quarter-final run in her seventh event of the year.The top teams in each round-robin group will advance to September's eight-team finals in Shenzhen, China."It's tough for every nation to put out their best players in each tie,' Keothavong told BBC Sport in The Hague, where Britain are in a group with Germany and the Netherlands."The calendar is just makes it so difficult for players, so I'm empathetic as to how they are. "The tennis circuit is brutal - you go from one week to the next and there's not much time to rest and recover."You have got to try and pick and choose your moments, but it's not a player problem - it's a tennis problem."One of these days maybe everyone can figure out a solution and work together."
One solution is to play the Finals earlier in the season - and as Keothavong was speaking it was confirmed they will take place from 16-21 September, rather than the traditional November date.November, when the WTA Tour season is over for the year, has often proved unpopular with players, and it will now take place at the start of a seven-week run of tournaments in Asia.GB's team includes world number 40 Katie Boulter and 60th-ranked Sonay Kartal. Harriet Dart and Olivia Nicholls are also involved, with Jodie Burrage added when Raducanu withdrew last week."Obviously it's disappointing we don't have her on this team, but I totally understand what she needs to do,' Keothavong said of Raducanu."A player has got to do what a player has got to do - what is best for them. "She has given a lot to this team and she may not be with us this time round but I hope in the future she will be."
Boulter, who suffered a stress fracture of the back on national team duty in 2019, also emphasised the importance of managing your workload."I made that mistake once when I went out and played and got injured, so I've always said number one thing is your body," British number one Boulter said."You have to look after it, or else unfortunately you're not going to be playing week in week out, and that's the most important thing for me."Representing your country is an honour and a privilege and I do my very best with my body to be here every time."I think that's all we can ask of any person."Boulter will lead the British team on the clay - a surface on which she has relatively little experience.Boulter had not played a tour-level match on clay before the Madrid Open last April.Kartal is likely to make her debut by taking the second singles role. She will be buoyed by her run to the last sixteen in Indian Wells last month and playing on a surface which "enhances my game style even more".GB reached the semi-finals last year, losing to eventual runners-up Slovakia.
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The Herald Scotland
36 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Eilish McColgan: I've run a marathon, now I feel pressure-free
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.'
The National
an hour ago
- The National
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
- South Wales Guardian
Saturday's briefing: Liverpool agree club-record deal for Florian Wirtz
The much-anticipated move could break the British record, with the Germany star set to join his former team-mate Jeremie Frimpong at Anfield. Elsewhere, Thomas Frank reacted to his move to Tottenham, while Matheus Cunha spoke of his desire to help turn around Manchester United's fortunes. Premier League champions Liverpool are set to pay up to £116million to sign Wirtz after Leverkusen finally settled on a fee. The Reds had two bids rejected, the last one of £113m, which would have seen £100m paid up front with performance-related add-ons, but have finally got the deal over the line. Liverpool will still pay an initial £100m – comfortably surpassing their own record outlay – but the performance-related add-ons, if achieved, would make it a potential British record. Liverpool's overall outlay could surpass the £115m Chelsea paid Brighton in 2023 for Moises Caicedo. Striker Darwin Nunez was the Reds' previous record signing in 2022, although they have not paid the full £85m as he has not met all the requirements for certain add-ons to be due. Bournemouth left-back Milos Kerkez is next on Liverpool's list, which could take their summer spending close to £200m. We are delighted to announce the appointment of Thomas Frank as our new Head Coach on a contract that runs until 2028. Welcome, Thomas! 🤍 — Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) June 12, 2025 Tottenham are prepared to rival Manchester United for Brentford attacker Bryan Mbeumo this summer after the appointment of Frank, the PA news agency understands. Spurs announced former Brentford boss Frank as their new head coach on Thursday night on a three-year deal. One of Frank's first moves in charge could be to try and tempt Mbeumo to follow him across London. The Dane declared 'a big piece of my heart' would always remain at Brentford in an emotional message posted on their official website. 'The time has come for me to move on. But, even as I leave, I know I have left a big piece of my heart at Brentford, not just at the football club but with the community and, of course, the incredible and loyal supporters,' said Frank. 'I want to extend my profound gratitude to the club for giving me the chance to pursue my dreams and for everyone involved who made the journey such a memorable one.' A post shared by Manchester United (@manchesterunited) Matheus Cunha is delighted to have joined his 'dream' team and determined to help Manchester United bounce back from their worst season in 51 years. The 20-time English champions are in the midst of a rebuild under Ruben Amorim, having limped home 15th in the Premier League and lost the Europa League final to fellow strugglers Tottenham. The Red Devils' issues did not deter Brazil international Cunha, who completed his eagerly-anticipated £62.5million switch from Wolves on Thursday. 'It is the most common phrase that you can say at this moment, but this is the dream come true,' he told MUTV. 'Maybe outside, I think maybe my decision, they don't understand. But when you have always dreamed to play here, it's easier to pick this decision. 'For me, no-one else is like United. Of course, I know it's been a hard season for everyone. I think my decision shows what this club is for me and what I believe this club can be.' One player hoping to impress Frank is Spurs youngster Mikey Moore, but the teenager's immediate focus is ending an unforgettable breakthrough campaign with another European trophy. The highly-rated 17-year-old made 19 appearances in all competitions for his boyhood club, with five of those coming in the Europa League. The winger was on the bench for the final in Bilbao and three weeks on has more continental glory in his sights as England kick off their bid for Under-19 European Championship glory. 'It was a top experience – some of the best times of my life on that Wednesday night,' Moore told PA. 'Hopefully going on to win another medal and another trophy with these boys here would be a brilliant feeling and experience for everyone. 'There's some top players. We think we can go on and hopefully win the tournament. It's been a good little build-up but excited to get into the games now.' The summer of fútbol kicks off tomorrow. 👊 Let's Dial In. ✨ — Inter Miami CF (@InterMiamiCF) June 13, 2025 The Club World Cup gets under way on Saturday night at the Hard Rock Stadium, with Inter Miami playing in their home city against Egyptians Al Ahly in Group A. Moore will hope to star when England Under-19s begin their Euro campaign against Norway in Romania.
