Good finish to a tough afternoon we say from the Australian Women’s team following their doubles win especially at the expense of the robust Kazakhstan in both of the women’s singles matches.
Don’t know what to say but this was Maya Joint’s first BJK Cup appearance at only 18-years-old against someone who has 2-3 times the experience than her, even though she was born in the US at Grosse Point, Michigan.
Didn’t know the town was mentioned worldwide because NBC made the drama show there earlier this year.
But still, she’s come a long way as everyone in Australia is delighted for Maya to represent the green and gold.
Let’s hope she can someday fulfil her full potential much like Ash Barty who is from Brisbane and Maya’s first team game with Team Australia was also there at Pat Rafter Arena too – glad to hear that Tennis venue will be getting much-needed upgrades ahead of Brisbane 2032.
Then we saw Gold Coast resident Kim Birrell take on 2022 Wimbledon ladies’ singles champ Elena Rybakina having seen Kim go off on a flying start. She got away with some brilliant moments that kept her fighting to the very edge but was unable to write off the finishing touches unfortunately that forced Rybakina’s hand in straight sets & that was an early first group stage series win for Kazakhstan.
At the end of the day though, we’re so fortunate and grateful of our stronghold doubles team both men and women and yet the women were able to strike one back – despite the poor singles performances prior to this one v the Kazakh duo in straight sets once more.
All we have to wait now is for Colombia to give us a fighting chance tomorrow when they take on the Kazakh themselves. Now that may be highly unlikely but at least a 3-0 series target for Australia’s next game this Saturday v Colombia would hopefully put us another way when it comes to plotting a winning path later this year.
Whether if it’s Top 8 or second tier Play-Off finals towards the back end of 2025 I don’t know, but we clearly don’t have an Ash Barty like calibre at the moment.
Yes, Russian-born Daria Kasatkina has just became eligible to represent Australia recently but only at grand slams at this stage. Although it’s possible she could get a special exception for Daria to play team tournaments again at some point this time for Australia so she can feel comfortable with her adopted country than Russia.
For now, we are just hoping for the best for Colombia to represent on behalf of us tomorrow, and then we could still be in a fighting chance by beating them on our own backyard come this Saturday.
