Billie Jean King Cup (previously Fed Cup) - India

[jaydeep]

Heartiest congratulation to Sania Mirza, Ankita Raina, Rutuja Bhosale, Sowjanya Bavisetti, and Riya Bhatia for making the country proud ... Also a terrific job by our captain Vishaal Uppal and coach Ankita Bhambri.

[arjun2761]

Awesome performance by the women to advance! Even in the loss to highly rated China, Ankita was close to springing an upset which would then have put Sania and the doubles team with a chance.

Latvia will be tough as they will be heavily favored in all the 4 singles matches.

[sameerph]

Tops is designed for potential medalists at olympics or Asian games. Unfortunately, our womens singles players are not there as of now.

Yes, it is Latvia in Latvia on 17-18 April. I thought it would be on clay. But, just checked and last April Latvia played against Germany at home on indoor hard courts and lost 1-3.

Our fed cup tie against Latvia is now postponed to Feb 5-6, 2021.

[prasen9]

Fed is injured and had surgery. So there will be no Fed Cup this year.

[sameerph]

Our tie again Latvia on 16-17 April will take place in Jurmala on indoor hard courts. This is the related article on Fed cup site-

Latvia choose Jurmala for India play off

It will be still tough for us but at least it is better than playing on clay.

[sameerph]

This is our team for our first world group tie in Latvia on 16-17 April-

Sania Mirza
Ankita Raina
Karman Kaur Thandi
Rutuja Bhosale
Zeel Desai

Reserve player - Riya Bhatia

Captain - Vishal Uppal

Coach - Ankita Bhambri

I think Pranjala Yadalapalli who had some good results in Australia should have been there ahead of either Rutuja or Zeel. Rutuja has not been in that good form but of course in last tie she had delivered but that more than a year ago before covid break.

Btw, Fed cup is now renamed Billie Jean King Cup. We will change the thread name also later.

[suresh]

Rutuja deserves to be in this team as it was her heroics that got us into the next round. I hope that Rutuja/Zeel/KKT get some match practice before the Latvian tie. In any case, it is going to be tough with Latvia having two players ranked 53 (Jelena Ostapenko) and 56 (Anastasija Sevastova).

[vparam]

Should we change the name of this thread to the Billy Jean Cup as the Fed Cup name no longer exists?

[jayakris]

Should we change the name of this thread to the Billy Jean Cup as the Fed Cup name no longer exists?

Done! Mod, jay

[jai_in_canada]

Should we change the name of this thread to the Billy Jean Cup as the Fed Cup name no longer exists?

Done! Mod, jay

So somebody got fed up with Fed Cup?! Ok. There's Davis Cup, Laver Cup... they just use the last name. Shouldn't this just be King Cup?

I am waiting for Navaratri-kova Cup!!

[jayakris]

I cannot believe that they didn't call this just King Cup!!

[Atithee]

That would be an ultimate insult for the women! Calling their premier trophy the King Cup. Imagine the furor in today’s environment.

[jayakris]

^^ Oh, I see. Activists for women rights should have started a long time ago on dropping the use of husbands' last name (actually I have always wondered why that practice still continues)! Okay, call it BillieJean Cup then.

[jai_in_canada]

Yup. In today's environment "King" would be construed as being sexist and patriarchal by some, even though it's a proper noun. Plus, "King" is BJK's married name by her marriage to Larry King (Moffitt was her maiden name) so some might say Larry King is getting the honour not Billie Jean. Larry King, IIRC, founded World Team Tennis, which BJK is still involved with today.

So not only can every one not be pleased, it is a given some will necessarily be offended no matter what.

Anyway, Billie Jean Cup rolls off the tongue more easily than King Cup.

[sameerph]

Ankita has been practising with Sania to prepare for the tie against Latvia.

This is a related article-

Billie Jean King Cup | ‘Latvia favourites, but we are ready,’ says Ankita Raina

Hope this training together will help them jell better for this tie and then at Olympics where they are expected to play together.