Australia edged hosts Britain 2-1 within the semifinals of the Billie Jean King Cup Finals on Saturday to maneuver into the ultimate the place they’ll look to win their first title since 1974 once they tackle Switzerland.
Storm Sanders was Australia’s hero after she received the primary singles rubber earlier than returning for the deciding doubles match alongside 38-year-old Samantha Stosur.
With the tie degree at 1-1 following the singles, Sanders and Stosur beat the pairing of Alicia Barnett and Olivia Nicholls 7-6(1) 6-7(5) 10-6 as they returned to the ultimate for the primary time since 2019, once they completed runners-up.
“That could have gone either way, credit to the British girls … It’s a real honor to represent Australia in the final,” Sanders stated in a post-match interview whereas Stosur stated, “nobody deserved to lose that one.”
Britain, who reached the semifinals for the primary time in 41 years, began poorly as Sanders put Australia on the board when she beat Heather Watson 6-4 7-6(3) within the opening singles match.
Sanders is greater than 100 rungs beneath Watson within the rankings however the doubles specialist prolonged her unbeaten streak within the singles on the BJK Cup finals as she went for her photographs and fired 27 winners whereas the Briton made 39 unforced errors.
“She has great returns and plays super aggressively. I also thought she served really well, was really smart, changed it up a lot and threw in a lot of different paces and spins. And I struggled with that,” Watson instructed reporters.
With Australia 1-0 up, the strain was on Harriet Dart to maintain the hosts alive within the tie and she or he duly delivered with a powerful 7-6(3) 6-2 victory over Ajla Tomljanovic.
Dart began properly, taking the sport to the world quantity 33 Tomljanovic to race right into a 3-0 lead within the opening set however the Australian broke again and managed to power a tiebreak, which the Briton clinched as her confidence ranges grew.
Dart lifted her recreation within the second set and consolidated a double break to go 4-1 up as she lined the courtroom properly and fired winners that had Tomljanovic scrambling.
With the house crowd firmly behind Dart, she served for the set and Tomljanovic’s return went lengthy on the primary match level as Britain leveled the tie.
In the second semifinal, Switzerland beat the Czech Republic 2-0.
Switzerland’s Viktorija Golubic defeated Karolina Muchova 6-4 6-4 within the first singles rubber, earlier than Olympic champion Belinda Bencic beat Karolina Pliskova 6-2 7-6(6) to ship the Swiss to their second straight last.
The doubles conflict of Bencic and Jil Teichmann in opposition to the Czech pairing of Katerina Siniakova and Marketa Vondrousova was not performed.
