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GB too good for the Dutch


Great Britain notched up their second Fed Cup victory in as many days with a 3-0 win over the Netherlands in Estonia on Thursday.

Singles victories from Elena Baltacha and Anne Keothavong and a doubles win by Keothavong and Sarah Borwell ensured GB added to their 3-0 Fed Cup success over Hungary in the Europe/Africa Zone Group 1 in Tallinn.

The result puts captain Nigel Sears team at the top of Pool A with one more round robin tie to come against Luxembourg on Friday. The Brits are yet to drop a set.

Baltacha begun GBs Fed Cup second round-robin match against the Netherlands in style when she defeated Michelle Gerards 6-2, 6-4.

The Dutchwoman claimed first blood by breaking in the third game, only for the British No.2 to immediately break back.

Baltacha bagged another two breaks in the first set and there were another five games against serve in set two as the world No.108 from Middlesex secured her second straight-sets singles win of the week.

With GB 1-0 ahead, next it was British No.1 Keothavong to rack up her second victory in less than 24 hours by comfortably beating world No.152 Arantxa Rus 6-4, 6-4.

Keothavong made the decisive breakthrough in the fifth game of the first set and struck at 4-4 in the second when she took the tricky left-handers serve before wrapping up the match.

Doubles specialist Sarah Borwell then teamed up with Keothavong and the duo cruised through the dead rubber against Nicole Thyssen and Pauline Wong 6-4, 6-0.

“It’s great for the team to win 3-0 again – we’re full of confidence,” Keothavong told her official website. “I didn’t play as well in my singles match as I did yesterday but at the same time I never felt threatened.

“It’s good to know that I can still win against opponents like her even when I’m not playing great.

“My doubles debut with Sarah was very good, we had fun out there and it was a solid and clean performance.”

A win over Luxembourg, who lost 3-0 to the Dutch on day one, would put Britain into Saturdays semi-finals of the 15-nation group against one of the other three Pool winners.

Whoever wins those two semi-finals will go through to World Group II play-offs in April for a chance to join the top 16 nations in the world in 2009.


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Tim Farthing, Tennishead Editorial Director & Owner, has been a huge tennis fan his whole life. He's a tennis journalist and entrepreneur as well as playing tennis to a national standard. He also helps manage his local club and volunteers for his local tennis organisation. He's a specialist in content about the administration of professional tennis and tennis coaching for all levels.