The Italian selection, led by the world’s eighth-ranked player and Olympic medalist Jasmine Paolini, will begin its defense of the title of the 62nd edition of the Billie Jean King Cup, which will be held in Shenzhen, China, from September 16th to the 21st and will feature eight countries.
The Shenzhen Bay Sports Centre Arena, which already hosted the WTA Finals in 2019 and has an indoor hard court, will bring together Japan, Spain, United Kingdom, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, United States, as well as China (host) and Italy (winner in 2024).
The transalpine team, which will be captained by Tathiana Garbin and completed by Lucia Bronzetti, Elisabetta Cocciaretto and Sara Errani, will open the tournament against China on Tuesday from 5:00 p.m. local time.
They will be seeded after the victory in the finals of the last edition, held at the Martín Carpena pavilion in Málaga in 2024, in which they defeated Japan in the quarterfinals, Poland in the semifinals and Slovakia in the final. Paolini defeated Rebecca Sramkova 6-2, 6-1 in the decisive match.
The second day will pit Spain against Ukraine on Wednesday 17th at 17:00 local time. The winner will play their semi-final match against the winners of Italy-China on Friday 19th September at 17:00.
On Friday 18th, two qualifiers will be played, the one between Kazakhstan and the United States (10:00 local time) and then the one between Japan and the United Kingdom. The winner of each will play the other semi-final on Saturday 20th.
All qualifiers will consist of three matches: two singles followed by a doubles match. All will be played in the best of three sets with a tiebreak.
A Cup with a lot of history
The tournament is named after tennis legend, American Billie Jean King, winner of 12 Grand Slam titles and a key figure in the world of tennis for her activism for women’s rights and social change, both on and off the court.
The former tennis player gave her name to the tournament since the end of 2020. A competition that was previously held in November and has now moved to September, aligning with the start of the Asian tour and avoiding greater travel and fatigue for the tennis players.
The United States, with 18, is the country that has lifted the trophy the most times, the last being in 2017 and the first in 1963 (debut). It is closely followed by the Czech Republic with 11 (last in 2018) and Australia with seven (1974).
One step below, with five titles, are Russia, Spain and Italy, while France has three and Germany 2.
In this edition, however, five of the eight teams that will compete in the tournament have never won a Billie Jean King Cup: Kazakhstan, United Kingdom, China, Japan, and Ukraine.
Italy begins the defense of the 62nd Billie Jean King Cup
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