USA and Italy nominate Fed Cup final teams
The teams have been announced for the Fed Cup final and with Venus and Serena Williams unavailable through injury, the USA are in the main sticking with the line-up that took them to the decider for the second straight year.
American Fed Cup regulars Melanie Oudin, Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Liezel Huber comprise the core of captain Mary Joe Fernandez’s team, with teenager Coco Vandeweghe set to make her debut in the competition against Italy in the final.
Defending champions Italy retain the quartet that took them past the USA and to the 2009 Fed Cup title for this year’s clash, with French Open champion Francesca Schiavone and world No. 23 Flavia Pennetta joined in the nominated team by Roberta Vinci and Sara Errani.
Last year, the Italians completed a 4-0 whitewash of the USA at home on clay in Reggio Calabria but they will be travelling to opposition territory and the indoor hard courts at the San Diego Sports Arena as they attempt to make it two in a row.
For the USA’s two remaining members of the 2009 final team, world No. 68 Oudin and doubles specialist Huber, this will be the chance to attempt to exact some revenge for last year’s result, but it’s a task that would have undoubtedly been easier had one or both of the Williams sisters been fit and able to make good on the commitment they made in August to play for their country in the Fed Cup final.
Fernandez may have been saved the dilemma of choosing loyalty to the players that took her team to the final over the might of Venus and Serena, but has in the process been left with a much weaker team than the one she must have been planning to field just a couple of months ago.
Instead she has a team comprised of: a teenager who has so far failed to live up to the expectations generated by her surprise run to the US Open quarter-finals in 2009 (Oudin); the world No. 60 (Mattek-Sands) as their highest ranked player; a developing youngster ranked as the world No. 115 but capable of the odd big name upset (Vandeweghe – who defeated new world No. 2 Vera Zvonareva in San Diego this year); and the world’s top-ranked doubles player (the 34-year-old Huber).
Still, the USA captain is remaining positive about her side’s chances of upsetting what on paper is a much stronger Italian outfit.
"I am very excited to be in the final once again and to be at home – that is huge," Fernandez is quoted as saying on the USTA website. "We have played a lot of our ties away, and to be able to host the final for the first time in 10 years and trying to win the Fed Cup for the first time in 10 years is quite a thrill.”
Whether or not that attempt will be successful will be determined in San Diego on November 6th and 7th.
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