Judy Murray has just asked the question all of us want to know the answer to:

"Fill me in guys....why is Bally not playing?"

Switzerland's Patty Scnyder currently 4-1 up against GB's Annie K


Oh dear

Switzerland win, 6-1 6-2

Nigel Sears, Fed Cup captain: "Bally has slight niggle in knee & we're trying to get her ready to play later this week"

Well I suppose if she'd played, people could have said it was just like last year, i.e. playing someone carrying an injury. But the problem was (and is) that we were always likely to win the Denmark tie 2-1 virtually whatever team we put out and without a win in the Switzerland tie, there isn't going to be a "later this week" worth saving her for.

If the niggle was bad enough that she would have pulled out of her match in an individual event, then fair enough, she shouldn't have played ... but if she could have played, I would have selected her, if only to give Anne an easier match and to rest her after the no. 2 singles match so that she had more chance of playing in the doubles too if needed.

steven wrote:

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Nigel Sears, Fed Cup captain: "Bally has slight niggle in knee & we're trying to get her ready to play later this week"

Well I suppose if she'd played, people could have said it was just like last year, i.e. playing someone carrying an injury. But the problem was (and is) that we were always likely to win the Denmark tie 2-1 virtually whatever team we put out and without a win in the Switzerland tie, there isn't going to be a "later this week" worth saving her for.

If the niggle was bad enough that she would have pulled out of her match in an individual event, then fair enough, she shouldn't have played ... but if she could have played, I would have selected her, if only to give Anne an easier match and to rest her after the no. 2 singles match so that she had more chance of playing in the doubles too if needed.

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I suppose it all depends how bad the niggle is. The fact that Nigel has said they'll try to get her ready for the end of the week suggests to me that it is more than just a minor niggle. Apart from experience Bally isn't much better than Heather on current form so I think he made the right decision, what if Bally played and made the slight injury worse.

My interpretation of the events so far are that Heather was too nervous to give of her best, Schnyder was playing at her best and that Heather and Joc is a good doubles team. Heather would be fired up to make amends for her singles, Joc seems to revel at this higher level when the pressure is on. The Swiss also maybe know the tie is won and are not as fired up.

 

Yes, that always had to be injury related. 

While I and many others diagreed with last year's picking of Anne over Katie I could just about understand where Nigel had been coming from ( and credit to him that he set out his thinking ).

This time there just simply would have been no logic in leaving out a fit Bally, and it did actually appear pretty clear from Elena and Anne's comments yesterday that the plan was for Elena and Anne to play the singles ties.

Re how they have played it given Bally's "niggle"  I tend to agree with Phil.  Clearly we don't know how bad it is but yes Nigel's wording of "trying to get her ready to play later this week" does suggest it was certainly more than precautionary.  Given that and Anne and Heather's recent form, ( while ideally Bally would still be our no 1 she is not obviously miles better )  on the face of it I'd say that it is a great pity but it seems to me a perfectly reasonable decision.

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 2nd of February 2011 06:55:22 PM

A confidence-boosting win for Heather and Joss in the doubles is certainly something positive to come out of the day and if Elena really couldn't have played (and I gree that sounds quite likely now) and the Swiss singles players suddenly rediscovered some form for Fed Cup, then coming out of the tie with a win in one rubber is better than nothing.

I agree that even if we beat the Danes 2-1 and they somehow sneak the doubles rubber against the Swiss, it's hard to envisage a realistic scenario where we would go through on tiebreak, but not conceding a set in the doubles has at least left us with an outside chance.

The problem is, even if we beat the Danes 3-0 (which seems virtually impossible if Caro plays) or got a 2-1 win with a good sets %, we'd still need to rely on the Danes winning the doubles rubber against the Swiss.