Slovenia Takes Heart, USA Takes Win
Lisa Raymond will remember Portoroz for a long, long time. Distraught after
losing her opening match to Tina Pisnik on Saturday, the American was just
two games from defeat against Katerina Srebotnik in the fourth rubber of this
Fed Cup first round tie, but she found something from somewhere to fight back.
She put much of the achievement down to the support of her bench, as her
team-mates - Venus Williams, Martina Navratilova and coaching staff Zina
Garrison and Billie-Jean King - roared her on from the sidelines.
Raymond broke the Slovenian’s serve to level the match at 4-all, and then
again to win the rubber and build and unassailable 3-1 lead for the United
States.
It was a sweet way to finish matters for the American.
“Everyone said today is a new day, and it’s funny because it is,” said
Raymond.
“I don’t even remember yesterday. As down as I was last night, and as
devastated as I was at losing and feeling as though I’d let everyone down,
I’m on such a high right now. Sport is funny that way.”
Earlier, Williams had survived a scare to see off Pisnik in the third rubber of
the tie, and nudge the US in front. Williams struggled early on with the
subtle spins of her opponent on the red clay courts here, but it didn’t take
long for her to find her game. After losing 10 of the first 11 points of the
match, she won 15 of the last 16 in the first set. She continued in the second
just as she finished the first and wrapped up a 6-3, 6-1 victory.
It brought a successful conclusion to Zina Garrison’s first tie as Fed Cup
captain, and she seemed to relish it.
Slovenia, meanwhile, can take a lot of positives out of the event after
Pisnik and Srebotnik both ran the American team close. For a country of two
million people, it was a huge step forward.
“It’s going to be a big help for our tennis federation,” said the Slovenian
captain, Mima Jausovec. “I think we are going to have more help to build up
our programs. We also want other young players to go the same way as these
girls did. This match has done so much for sports in Slovenia.”
The US will now travel to Austria in July for the quarterfinals.
“Being the competitor I am, and the competitors the girls are, we want to go
there and win because they beat us last time,” said Garrison. “But, it’s
going to be just after Wimbledon, it’s probably going to be on clay, and we
will really have to step it up.”
She will certainly have plenty of players to choose from with Serena Williams
and Lindsay Davenport both possibilities, while Venus confirmed that she will
be available.
“It was amazing,” said Williams, of the Portoroz experience. “This was my
first Fed Cup tie without Serena playing, and I would love to keep playing.
I haven’t had as much chance to play Fed Cup as I would have liked, so I
definitely want to keep it moving.”
No doubt tennis fans in the USA, and to a lesser extent those in Austria,
will be feeling the same way.
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我想雷蒙一定壓力大
所以他比賽贏後緊抱大威(上篇第三張照片)
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