Kim Clijsters and Yanina Wickmayer dropped from the Belgian’s Fed Cup squad – Tennis News
Belgium’s Federation Cup team will fly to Japan to contest in the World Group playoffs but they are handicapped without the participation of the former world number one, Kim Clijsters and number one Belgian, Yanina Wickmayer, who
is currently ranked 30th in the world.
Clijsters is suffering from a chronic hip muscle injury and she needs at least a month or so to recover according to her agent. She incurred the injury in the Sony Ericsson Open at Miami; has been out of action since then and still
haven’t officially kicked off her clay court season. She is probably going to make a return to the tennis circuit in the upcoming event in Spain, the Madrid Open. This tournament will commence from May 5.
Wickmayer is currently training for the clay courts season and her hectic Women Tennis Association tours probably don’t give her chance to switch from clay court to the hard courts in Japan. She is also concerned about her own
individual career and only wants to focus herself on clay courts. Any change in course of her training can ruin her personal career and probably forcing her to take too much of a risk.
Therefore, the squad that Belgian has prepared for the Federation Cup tie is led by Kirsten Flipkens who is ranked 176 in the world. No player is ranked higher than her and that will clearly lessen Belgian’s chances of winning
the tie but considering that Japan doesn’t have a tough team, Belgium can see them off with a depleted squad as well.
However, the omission of the top two players from the Belgian squad has made it a much more interesting tie as both teams are now equally talented and contains youngsters that are looking to make a name for them at elite platform.
Japan will have an edge of the home soil and support of the crowd but they will have to their work cut out in order to power down the handicapped but talented Belgian squad.
The tie will take place from April 21-22. It’s a balanced tie and any team can win it at the moment.
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