Billie Jean King Cup: Austria facing a difficult mission - but with a clear goal
Before the play-off home game against Latvia on November 11th and 12th in Latvia, captain Marion Maruska definitely sees a chance - and also one or the other advantage.
by p.m
last edit: Nov 08, 2022, 04:25 pm
There are still three days until the Alpstar Austria Billie Jean King Cup Team will open the international match against Latvia in the Multiversum Schwechat. For the ÖTV women's team, the first home game in over 14 years (2:3 against Switzerland in April 2008) not only offers a great opportunity to win a ticket for the increasing qualification for the Billie Jean King Cup by Gainbridge Finals 2023 in spring , but also an opportunity to reciprocate with the Baltic women. Because the two previous duels with Latvia have both been lost: 2015 in Budapest (Hungary) with 1: 2, 2018 in Tallinn (Estonia) with 0: 3. At the pre-draw press conference on Tuesday in Schwechat, ÖTV sports coordinator and team captain Marion Maruska was convinced that the saying “all good things come in threes” could be true.
"The goal is of course to win - otherwise we wouldn't need to play at all," explained a smiling Maruska, who is well aware of the demanding task: "Of course it will be difficult. Jelena Ostapenko is a WTA Top 20 player, just made it to the doubles semifinals at the WTA Finals in Forth Worth, and is a former singles Grand Slam champion (French Open 2017; note). Of course she can get all three points. However, our goal is to conquer them. We have players with us who also have the potential – whether you can do it or not is another question. The potential is there, we believe in victory.” In this regard, the Lower Austrian's previous training performance has also encouraged him: “Our ladies are really all in good shape. They can play well on the pitch and have given feedback several times that they are satisfied with the court and that they are getting along well with it.” ÖTV sports director and Davis Cup captain Jürgen Melzer was also present at the first training sessions of the week with me on the pitch.
Training advantage Austria – especially compared to Ostapenko
Sinja Kraus, Tamira Paszek and Melanie Klaffner completed “the first training session on Sunday. We just hit loosely and got used to the place a little bit, slowly testing it out. Yesterday we then had the first more intensive units, with more running work and preparing points”, on Monday evening with Barbara Haas who joined us. This gives you a small training advantage over Latvia: "I haven't seen too much of your training sessions, because originally there were only two of you, with Daniela Vismane and her junior Beatrise Zeltina. Diana Marcinkevica was also added this Tuesday” – as WTA number 300, Latvia’s number four in the world rankings.
While Latvia's actual number two, Darja Semenistaja, is conspicuous by his absence, top star Ostapenko is not expected to arrive until Wednesday. Maruska saw a clear advantage in this: "I think that her preparation isn't the best either, if she's just come straight from America, where she played hard court, now has to play a clay court and won't arrive until Wednesday. That's not a lot of preparation time and certainly not ideal. We just have to use our chances, and that's certainly one of them," said the captain. In any case, it should not fail because of the atmosphere in his own team, which Maruska is still reticent about: "It's excellent. The girls all get along really well with each other. After the training day, they first have their treatments – physiotherapy and massage –, then and in between we play various games, board games like UNO. This time we also have Taboo with us. That's why we have a lot of fun in the team."