Peter too wrote:

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Anne has played Mayr-Achleitner twice, losing to her at Wimbledon in 2009 and beating her 6-2 6-1 last year on the hard court at Nassau.

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She has played her on one other occasion as well (yes Katie really didn't play that match).

tony_orient wrote:

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Also, does anyone know what time we are playing tomorrow?

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According to tweet from Stuart Fraser, who is out there :

Britain to play Austria in promotion play-off tomorrow at 3:30pm (1:30pm UK time). It's on Side Court 1 so no streaming I'm afraid

philwrig wrote:

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There's just something about the energy of this team this week, that makes me think that Austria are going to have to put up one helluva performance to deny us a date in April for a world group playoff match.

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It would be nice to think that, but the "cold" results hardly bear out your optimism.

Of GB's 9 matches so far, 7 have gone with rankings (which is the "default" result, obviously). The 2 that haven't were: Keothavong (88) losing to Schoofs (154); and Peer (37) losing to Baltacha (57).

And without wanting to take anything away from Elena, Peer had also lost to Larcher de Brito (136) the day before, and is reported as having played well below her base level.

So there seems little evidence for a "Judy Murray/team spirit effect" so far.

Austria's team rankings are a little higher than GB's. I don't know why they have been playing Mayr (96) in preference to Klemenschits (82). Austria are presumably the favourites, especially since they have the major advantage of having played only 2 matches.

Oh, I wish I owned a pair of rose-tinted glasses ...

indiana wrote:

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EDIT :   Typical,  beaten by Steven      Are you sure Argentina are there yet ?

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I saw a report on the #FedCup twitter stream suggesting Argentina had won but didn't have time to check - thinking about the time difference, my guess is they haven't - perhaps they won the 1st rubber.

Edit: it was actually on the official @FedCup twitter stream, so my original list was correct after all:

"Argentina have won the Group I Americas play-off against Colombia and will now advance to the World Group II play-off in April"

Ratty wrote:

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philwrig wrote:

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There's just something about the energy of this team this week, that makes me think that Austria are going to have to put up one helluva performance to deny us a date in April for a world group playoff match.

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It would be nice to think that, but the "cold" results hardly bear out your optimism.

Of GB's 9 matches so far, 7 have gone with rankings (which is the "default" result, obviously). The 2 that haven't were: Keothavong (88) losing to Schoofs (154); and Peer (37) losing to Baltacha (57).

And without wanting to take anything away from Elena, Peer had also lost to Larcher de Brito (136) the day before, and is reported as having played well below her base level.

So there seems little evidence for a "Judy Murray/team spirit effect" so far.

Austria's team rankings are a little higher than GB's. I don't know why they have been playing Mayr (96) in preference to Klemenschits (82). Austria are presumably the favourites, especially since they have the major advantage of having played only 2 matches.

Oh, I wish I owned a pair of rose-tinted glasses ...

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Easy answer to the Klemenschits 'mystery' - her ranking of 82 is her doubles ranking, she is unranked in singles with a career high of 318 back in 2001!

I think GB have a huge challenge on their hands today and Austria probably start as favourites but while it's true that GB is only 1-1 in ranking upsets in singles this week, they are also 7-0 in all other matches, which is no mean feat when none of the opponents have been easy (apart from Köhler, perhaps, but then she went and beat Schoofs yesterday!) and not something we are used to from GB teams!

They have dug themselves out of some big holes this week as well, which might (just might) suggest that Judy is doing a good job on the bench, and Bally has said more than once how much of a difference the opponent analysis Judy has done has made.

Also, after years of throwing young Brits to the lions in DC (either through necessity or stupidity) with all the bad effects that seems to have had on them, we have a pair of young Brits in Fed Cup who have been introduced more gently by playing mainly doubles (a bit like Muzz was in DC against Israel), with the result that they are both in the habit of winning Fed Cup matches - Hev has a 7-1 record, Laura 3-0. It would take a very big step up from them to win if there is a live doubles rubber today, but I bet they'll be going into it (with only positive Fed Cup 'baggage') believing they can win it - again, contrast that with young Brits in DC.

Contrasting GB's performances so far this week with Austria - Paszek is 0-2 this week - a shocking straight sets loss to 16yo Anett Kontaveit WR 588 followed by a more competitive 3-set defeat to Pironkova WR 50, while Mayr started off with a double bagel win agianst an unranked Estonian and then beat Kostova WR 151.

So, Austria haven't had to exert themselves as much as GB this week (though the Brits have done as good a job of minimising time out on court as we could have hoped), but there seems little doubt about which team is more 'in the groove' this week - and I've not talking about Laura's rapping here LOL