Billie Jean King Cup Finals: USA in Slovak shock, fail to reach semi-finals for third straight year

Late on Thursday night, Slovakia pulled off an almighty shock at the Billie Jean King Cup Finals as the underdog nation found a way past USA who continue their unwanted streak of defeats in the year end tournament.

Without heavyweight stars like Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff and even Emma Navarro, the USA were slightly depleted. Danielle Collins and Taylor Townsend aimed to anchor the side with Peyton Stearns not playing oddly with Townsend favoured for the singles outing.

Townsend though started well. She took on reigning Australian Open girls and Wimbledon girls champion Renata Jamrichova so very much one for the future. But despite playing well to keep Townsend at bay at times, the experience of the American shone through in a 7-5, 6-4 win. This gave the USA an advantage.

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They would've perhaps thought the tie was close to being sewn up with a certain Danielle Collins who has been a top 10 player this year and multiple title winner up next. But she was facing Rebecca Sramkova who has been under the radar one of the stories of the latter half of the year.

Whilst many of the top names including Collins have fallen away form wise with the rigours of the tour, Sramkova has barely lost. She rose to World No.43 after three WTA 250 finals and her only notable loss was against Sonay Kartal in Monastir. But she has favoured better of the two since then and favoured better than Collins in a 6-2, 7-5 win. The deciding doubles tie featured Townsend as well as Ashlyn Krueger. They faced Viktoria Hruncakova and Tereza Mihalikova.

They surged into the lead in the opening set breaking twice. Only for the USA to level the score in the second set. A super tiebreak was needed which saw Slovakia race away into a 9-2 lead. They missed six match points though and had to fall over the line 10-8.

It sets up a clash with Australia next up and condemns the USA into a title drought again. They have barely won a match since sealing the title in 2017 beating Belarus in the final and without their top names who got them into this position earlier in the season, they struggled.