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Tuesday February 02, 2011 |
The ITF has announced the team nominations for Fed Cup by BNP Paribas Europe/Africa Zone Group I, taking place on 2-5 February at the Municipal Tennis Club in Eilat, Israel. By LadyDragon MONTREAL, Canada--(LadyDragon.com)02/02/11--Caroline Wozniacki, the world No. 1 from Denmark, heads up a high-class field that also includes two further Top 20 players, Belarus’s Victoria Azarenka and Israel’s Shahar Peer. Wozniacki, who won six WTA Tour titles last season, made her Fed Cup debut as a 14-year-old in 2005 and has helped Denmark retain its Group I status each year since. She is joined in the side by up-and-coming teenagers Karen Barbat, Mai Grage and Cecilie Melsted. Azarenka, currently ranked No. 10, spearheads a strong Belarusian team alongside world No. 75 Olga Govortsova, while Peer takes her place in the Israeli line-up for the tenth straight year. Romanian captain Irina Spirlea, a successful Fed Cup player herself in the early 1990s, will be confident of pushing for promotion after naming three players inside the Top 100, led by world No. 29 Alexandra Dulgheru. Switzerland’s hopes rest on the shoulders of the evergreen Patty Schnyder, who first played Fed Cup back in 1996. The left-hander is backed up by world No. 50 Timea Bacsinszky. Great Britain is also a contender for promotion after naming the experienced duo of Elena Baltacha and Anne Keothavong alongside former US Open junior champion Heather Watson. Bulgarian captain Dora Rangelova has called on the services of former world No. 4 Magdalena Maleeva, who hasn’t played professional tennis since retiring in 2005. Maleeva, a ten-time tournament winner, made a comeback earlier this year by winning the National Championships in Bulgaria, sparking rumours that a return to the game could be on the cards. “I am very happy that Magi Maleeva wanted to participate in the team,” said Ragelova. “She is a big name in tennis. Her experience and routine will in all cases contribute to our good performance. The fact that she will participate would be an additional motivation to the other tennis players.” In total, 18 players from the Top 100 are competing in Eilat, where 15 nations will be split into four round-robin pools before promotion and relegation is decided in the subsequent play-offs. The full list of nominations is below: Austria Belarus Bulgaria Croatia Denmark Great
Britain Greece Hungary Israel Latvia Luxembourg Netherlands Poland Romania Switzerland |
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