Anne Keothavong has joined the loud chorus of prominent figures critical of last week’s WTA Finals in Mexico. Great Britain’s Billie Jean King Cup captain expressed sympathy towards the players competing at the event in Cancún and the difficult conditions they were forced to play in throughout the week.
“Most people in tennis watching from afar would probably question what was going on,” said Keothavong. “And I felt for the players. That’s the WTA season-ending championships. That’s meant to be the highlight of the year for those top eight players and the doubles players. And the conditions and everything that they had to deal with was difficult.
“I think Steve Simon [the WTA chief executive] has come out and he’s taken responsibility and acknowledged that it wasn’t good enough for the players. Hopefully the WTA will be able to work and find a solution to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again.”
Keothavong was speaking in the build up to the Billie Jean King Cup playoffs tie with Sweden which takes place in far more desirable indoor conditions at the cosy Copper Box arena in London, as the hosts try to retain their spot at the top of the competition for another year.
This tie marks a full-circle moment for Great Britain four years after they defeated Kazakhstan in a raucous Copper Box to secure promotion from the zonal groups, where they had been stuck for 26 years.
The events of the tie in April 2019 were a significant moment in Katie Boulter’s career as she competed brilliantly alongside Johanna Konta but with a stress fracture in her back, an injury that would lead to a seven-month layoff and her tumbling down the rankings from around a career high inside the top 85 to outside the top 350. Boulter returned to the top 100 only this year.
“I see the positives and the negatives of that tie,” she said. “I really do. And I learned a lot from the situation that I was in, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. It’s a full circle for me. I’m glad to be back here and I don’t think I’d be in the position I am right now, if it wasn’t for that tie.”
Great Britain will be heavy favourites on the weekend and anything less than victory would be a dramatic upset. Boulter, currently ranked No 58 having broken the top 50 for the first time in September, will lead the team out.
Jodie Burrage, who broke the top 100 this summer and is now ranked No 93, will make her Billie Jean King Cup debut as Britain’s No 2. Heather Watson and Harriet Dart form Great Britain’s doubles team. Emma Raducanu, meanwhile, continues her recovery from injury at the National Tennis Centre after undergoing surgery to both hands and her ankle in April.
Britain will face a significantly weakened Sweden team without their top two players, the world No 103, Rebecca Peterson, and the No 163, Mirjam Björklund, who have both been injured since the US Open. In their absence, Kajsa Rinaldo Persson, ranked No 372, plays Burrage in Saturday’s opener as Sweden’s first player and the No 532, Caijsa Hennemann, will face Boulter.
Meanwhile, Jack Draper continues to thrive after his injury problems as he reached an ATP final for the first time in his career, defeating Jan-Lennard Struff 6-3, 6-4 in the semi-finals of the Sofia Open. The 21-year-old Draper is the youngest British man to reach an ATP final since Andy Murray in Miami 2009.
