Venus Leads U.S. Past Poland in Fed Cup

February 8, 2016 | By Long Island Tennis Magazine Staff
Venus_Crop_01_3
Photo credit: Sidney Beal III

The United States needed just the first three singles matches of its best-of-five World Group II playoff to move past Poland 3-0 after Venus Williams defeated Poland’s second-highest ranked player, Magda Linette, 6-1, 6-2 on Sunday in Kailua Kona, Hawaii.

The playoff got underway on Saturday, and it was Sloane Stephens who put the Americans on top first. She played Linette in her opener, and after taking the first set 6-2, fell behind 0-4 in the second set.

But Stephens rallied and rattled off the next six games to knock off Linette in straight sets. Venus Williams defeated Paula Kania 7-5, 6-2 to give the U.S. a commanding 2-0 advantage.

And Venus then needed just one hour to defeat Linette on Sunday to clinch the victory for the United States.

Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Coco Vandeweghe knocked off Kania and Klaudia Jans-Ignacik 6-1, 7-5 in the doubles match to put the United States up 4-0, and the fifth and final singles match wasn’t played.

“The goal was to get a win any which way we could,” said US captain Mary Joe Fernandez. “I think it’s great we were able to win all matches. We mentioned this at the beginning of the week: Team competition is different. The pressures are different. The expectations are different. It was a big matchup, because now we’re one step closer to getting back into the World Group next year. This was very important. Now we go on in April to play our next one, try to get three wins again to compete for the Fed Cup title next year.”

The win puts the United States into the World Group playoffs in April.


Long Island Tennis Magazine Staff
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