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Australia captain Alicia Molik believes her unsung tennis ladies can beat the world on the Billie Jean King Cup – even and not using a world-beater of their ranks.
Molik’s spirited workforce demonstrated they might thrive even with out the magic of Ash Barty to encourage them after they reached the semi-finals of final 12 months’s occasion which is seen because the World Cup of girls’s tennis.
Now within the post-Barty period, she’s satisfied her outfit of “devoted and diligent” battlers can go even additional this week, inflicting a sensation by profitable the entire week-long occasion within the Scottish metropolis of Glasgow.
“We had lots of highlights in final 12 months’s occasion in Prague, lots of nice recollections, lots of success, and having that style makes us nice really feel like we need to go a step additional this time,” Molik instructed reporters on Sunday.
“Completely, now we have huge ambitions. We received shut final 12 months and possibly what helped us is that Australian tennis gamers, and this workforce specifically, are fairly devoted and diligent, they’re fighters.
“I really feel like we have got the stamina, the battle and the willpower that goes a good distance too when it is the top of an extended laborious 12 months, everybody’s drained, and I actually really feel like our workforce can actually step up.
It was a bullish declaration from Molik, whose five-woman workforce – on paper at the very least – hardly look to have the ammunition for Australia wanted to raise the trophy previously often known as the Fed Cup for the primary time since 1974.
They’re the No.1 seeds however that rating dates again to April, simply after Barty had retired – and it is now all the way down to a buoyant Ajla Tomljanovic, at the moment at a career-high world No.33, to spearhead a workforce whose next-best ranked singles participant is Priscilla Hon, at a lowly 153.
Storm Sanders, the world No.236, is more likely to be in competition with Hon for the second singles spot, whereas Ellen Perez and the indefatigable veteran Sam Stosur make up the squad.
With Barty on board, the workforce reached the ultimate in 2019, shedding agonisingly to France 3-2 in Perth – nonetheless a painful reminiscence for Molik, Tomljanovic and Stosur.
“Perth was a bit heartbreaking to lose, so completely we might like to attempt to put some completely different recollections there,” stated 38-year-old Stosur, again in BJK Cup motion once more – astonishingly, 19 years on from her debut.
By reaching final 12 months’s semi-final with out Barty, Molik felt her workforce had proven there actually might be life with out the world No.1.
“Ash’s retirement offers a little bit of a gap to each different participant in Australia to step up and attempt to steal that No.1 place in Australia and on the planet.
“Ajla’s achieved that this 12 months along with her career-high rating. It is an amazing alternative for everybody else to pave their very own means and step up.
“We have proven our greatest tennis is prime tennis – it is world-rated and it is match-winning and tournament-winning.
“I actually really feel our greatest could be very, superb.”
On Tuesday, the Aussies open up in opposition to Slovakia of their first three-rubber tie, earlier than dealing with Belgium on Thursday, with solely the winners of their three-team group occurring to Saturday’s semi-final. The ultimate is about for twenty-four hours later.
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