Austria’s tennis women will face Denmark, Hungary and Bulgaria in Group A in Europe-Africa Zone I of the Billie Jean King Cup in Oeiras. This is what the draw made on Sunday revealed.
The start is on Monday against the Danes, where former ranking leader Caroline Wozniacki could be used. “A difficult task awaits us, as all three opponents have good players,” said ÖTV captain Marion Maruska.
“We are not favorites against anyone”
According to ÖTV sports director Jürgen Melzer, things couldn’t have been much worse. “We are not favorites against anyone,” emphasized the Lower Austrian. However, the Austrians can still hope that Wozniacki doesn’t play in the opening game. The Danish number two is on the nomination list, but has not yet been seen at the facility.
“We don’t know whether she will arrive tomorrow, without her it would significantly increase our chances,” Melzer is aware.
On paper, Clara Tauson is ranked 87th. the Danish top player, Wozniacki is currently only number 126 in the world. This means she is only not far behind Julia Grabher (123rd), Austria’s best player, who got fit in time for the international competitions.
Grabher wants to gain match practice after recovering from injury
In her first tour appearances after recovering from a wrist injury, Grabher recently suffered first-round defeats in Antalya and Split. “My comeback didn’t go as I would have liked, but I haven’t played a match in seven months, I just don’t have the match practice,” said Grabher.
In Portugal she would now like to get as much match practice as possible. “Then I’ll definitely improve. The most important thing is that my wrist gets better every day, the rest will come,” said the Vorarlberg native looking ahead optimistically. And that despite having received “certainly the hardest” group. “We can’t change that, we’ll do our best and then we’ll see what happens at the end of the day.”
Kraus, Paszek, Kostic and Klaffner complete the ÖTV line-up
Sinja Kraus appears as world number 201. and looks forward to a “super strenuous week and is highly motivated”. Tamira Paszek, Tamara Kostic and Melanie Klaffner are also in the squad.
“We were able to prepare very well here in a short time, the final training went well,” said Maruska. Bulgaria’s top player is Viktoriya Tomova (74th), Hungary is led by Timea Babos (160th).
After the three games in one of the three groups of four, the game continues in four groups of three. The top three have already secured promotion to the play-off for the qualifying round for the Billie Jean King Cup Finals 2025, while the three runners-up have secured another ticket.
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2024-04-07 18:38:44
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