Australia fall into a nightmare position against Great Britain at Melbourne Park
Updated ,first published
Australia suffered an embarrassing 3-0 defeat to Great Britain in a Billie Jean King Cup qualifying match at Melbourne Park, failing to qualify for consecutive finals.
Storm Sanders and Ellen Perez, who were in the top 20 in doubles, failed to keep Australia’s hopes alive; Leading 3-1 in the first set on Saturday afternoon, they lost 6-3, 6-4 to British pair Harriet Dart and Jodie Burrage, sealing the shock fate of the host country.
“It feels really good,” Burrage said on the field.
Australia will have to regain their place in the top group in the play-off tie in November.
The doubles defeat followed Talia Gibson and Kim Birrell’s singles defeat on Friday against 17-year-old rising star and 2024 US Open girls champion Mika Stojsavljevic and Dart.
Gold Coast’s young star Emerson Jones will make her BJK Cup debut on dead rubber in singles against Brit Katie Swan.
Sam Stosur’s team missed Maya Joint (back injury) but on paper she was the favorite against the visiting English, who went into battle without their top three singles options, Emma Raducanu, Katie Boulter and Sonay Kartal.
None of Great Britain’s representatives are currently ranked in the top 100 in singles or doubles, but that hardly mattered as they completely outplayed the Australians from the start.
It’s been a nightmare year in team competition for Australia, with Lleyton Hewitt’s Davis Cup team – playing without Alex de Minaur and Alexei Popyrin – losing to tennis minnow Ecuador on clay after the Australian Open.
Stosur still cannot select former Russian Daria Kasatkina, who is now an Australian citizen, because the process is ongoing with the International Tennis Federation and her experienced friend Ajla Tomljanovic is not in the squad.
Team captain Stosur vowed the Australians would be firing on Saturday to stage an unconventional challenge and Perez and Sanders made a bright start to a game they hope to win.
Coincidentally or not, the tides turned wildly when the roof of John Cain Arena was closed midway through the opening set.
The rot set in from the moment Sanders dropped serve, leaving the teams locked at three, and the English seized all the momentum when Perez double-faulted to force another break two games later.
Perez also completely missed a backhand volley, like everything else that can go wrong in the turnaround of the game.
The second set wasn’t much better for the Aussies, who made the most of it after two breaks and recovered each time. There was a brief whiff of a comeback when Perez served for a 4-3 lead during a patch in which they had won nine points in a row.
But Perez showed too much aggression in the eighth game, making a series of mistakes and following up a missed volley by throwing his racket in disgust.
The end was in sight when Sanders started the next game with another double fault (one of six from the Australians) and Burrage’s deft backhand winner brought two break points.
The English needed just one for Burrage to finish the match comfortably and complete the draw to complete their robbery.
Fear Australia have to emerge from 0-2 hole after Billie Jean King Cup kicks off
Australia’s Billie Jean King Cup team had to climb out of a 0-2 hole to suffer the same fate as the country’s Davis Cup team after losing both of their singles matches against Great Britain at Melbourne Park on Friday.
Gun doubles pair Storm Sanders and Ellen Perez will look to keep Australia’s hopes alive in the opening round on Saturday, but the host nation also needs to win both reverse singles to clinch the draw and earn a place in the eight-nation final in China in September.
Australia started qualifying as heavy favorites due to the non-playing of the top three Brits – Emma Raducanu (viral illness), Sonay Kartal (back) and Katie Boulter.
But Great Britain’s 17-year-old rising star Mika Stojsavljevic quickly threw a spanner in the works.
Stojsavljevic, the 2024 US Open girls champion, used 12 aces to cruise to a stunning 7-6 (7-4), 7-5 victory over in-form Western Australian Talia Gibson, who upset five top-20 opponents at Indian Wells and Miami last month.
Kim Birrell, world No. She looked set to level the tie as she raced to a one-set lead against 173 Harriet Dart, but 15 double faults conspired against her as they suffered a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 defeat that left Australia in serious trouble.
With Birrell’s screams perhaps playing in his mind, his second serve from match point landed squarely in the middle of the service box for Dart to easily put the visiting Englishmen away and take them to the brink of victory.
“We have to stay as optimistic and positive as we can,” Australian team captain Sam Stosur said.
“Who might get frustrated for a while but that’s why we’re on a team because we can help get it back on its feet and that’s what it’s about. We can’t just sit there with our mouths open all night. It’s not going to help us do anything.”
“Obviously there’s going to be a lot of preparation for tomorrow’s matches, tactical conversations and things like that… so there’s still a lot to play for tonight, but that’s the beauty of these two-day events; you get another chance tomorrow. We’re going to fire and give it everything we’ve got.”
Gibson’s career-best run in the “Sunshine Double” took him from outside the top 100 to the fringes of the top 50, making him Australia’s No.1 despite having never played a match for his country before due to Maya Joint’s injury.
It also meant that all the attention and expectation was on Gibson, even though he had previously told the imprint that he wasn’t putting any pressure on him.
Gibson rallied from behind in both sets and had four separate break points out of five in the second set, but world No. 275 Stojsavljevic bravely got out of trouble on every occasion, including hitting one of his four aces in what proved to be a crucial game.
Everything quickly unraveled when Gibson, who struggled with simple mistakes for most of the match, lost the match by serving, leaving Australia trailing 1-0.
“It’s tough. We played an extremely long game at five. I had some opportunities. In those times when I had those opportunities, it produced some really great things,” Gibson said.
“You’re doing your best to maintain the momentum you have [and] I did my best in that match, I gave everything I could, but unfortunately I couldn’t get the break. I’m proud of myself for continuing to fight… and hopefully next time I can think about those moments and what I could have done better to come out on top.
“We’ve got a lot of games ahead of us, so if I have to get back out there tomorrow [Saturday]Then I’ll be ready to go again.
Australia finished second to Switzerland in the BJK Cup in 2022 under former team captain Alicia Molik with Storm Sanders in the lead, but losing to Great Britain would mean failing to qualify for consecutive eight-nation finals.
Like the men of the country, they will need to win the play-offs to stay at the top.
The Australian team, which lost Alex de Minaur and Alexei Popyrin, was shockingly defeated by Ecuador in the Davis Cup qualifiers after this year’s Australian Open; i.e. Gibson, Birrell et al. will be helpless to prevent a recurrence.
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