philwrig wrote:

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Julia Carrot wrote:

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philwrig wrote:

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Helen40 wrote:

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Great the you can talk to the team.

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Yes it's great, obviously some are more receptive than others.

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 Some a bit 'stand offish' ? 

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I can't name names you know ;)

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I'm fairly confident that I could list the 5 of them in order from most friendly to most stand-offish ... but maybe I'd find I was completely wrong!

Not necessarily a bad thing if a player is more stand-offish of course, if that's the way of getting ready for big matches that works for them.

Can't wait. Ballys latest column is great:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/17773506

Her passion is really inspiring and you cant help but urge them to win even more!

As a side note - who do we see as the most dangerous: Sofia or Johanna? Personally Johanna worries me slightly more if she can cope with the occasion.

wolf wrote:

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R1: Johanna Larsson WR 71 v Elena Baltacha WR 63
R2: Sofia Arvidsson WR 54 v Anne Keothavong WR 79
R3: Sofia Arvidsson WR 54 v Elena Baltacha WR 63
R4: Johanna Larsson WR 71 v Anne Keothavong WR 79
R5: Sofia Arvidsson & Johanna Larsson v Laura Robson & Heather Watson

Start times:
Day 1: 1400 hrs (1300 hrs BST)
Day 2: 1100 hrs (1000 hrs BST)

-- Edited by wolf on Friday 20th of April 2012 12:13:53 PM

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 How come only one doubles match? They played 2 in Israel. Though the second was not a deciding match.

Its meant to be just 1, like Davis Cup but over 2 days no 3 (which makes more sense to me) but why put the doubles at the end not the middle? Would make things more interesting, particularly in ties where the doubles team are stronger than the 2nd player.

Like the GB depth though, much nicer to see than the 2 horse Swedish team

murray_2k9 wrote:

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Its meant to be just 1, like Davis Cup but over 2 days no 3 (which makes more sense to me) but why put the doubles at the end not the middle? Would make things more interesting, particularly in ties where the doubles team are stronger than the 2nd player.

Like the GB depth though, much nicer to see than the 2 horse Swedish team

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It's pretty clear that the reasoning behind doubles being the 5th rubber in Fed Cup is that they want to ensure that the tie is still live going into day 2 (which means only playing 2 rubbers on day 1) and it's fairer to players who have to play both singles and doubles to have the singles before the doubles on day 2.

However, it does turn out a bit odd, in the sense that doubles specialists don't get to play a live rubber that often, yet when they do, it automatically decides the tie.

It also means that all four players should be used on the last day as, harder for a star player to double up and feature as both a singles and doubles player. Not impossible or against the rules I guess (?) but far easier to do when doubles is on a seperate day like Davis Cup. Makes it more of a team game.