Fed Cup 2020 Qualifiers Preview: USA, Netherlands and Canada all in action

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 17:35

The Fed Cup 2020 Qualifiers will take place on 7-8 February 2020 with the eight winners of the ties to join Australia, France, Hungary and Czech Republic at the Finals.

Top seeds are USA who as revealed earlier this week are fielding one of their best line-ups in some time. Serena Williams, Coco Gauff and Australian Open finalist Sofia Kenin are all involved, they will face Latvia.

Second seeds are Belarus who are fielding a similarly high strength team. This is headlined by World No.12 Aryna Sabalenka, Victoria Azarenka and Aliaksandra Sasnovich. They will take on Netherlands who are led by World No.10 Kiki Bertens.

Russia despite not being seeded have a great side on paper when they face third seeds Romania. This includes World No.28 Ekaterina Alexandrova, Australian Open Quarter-Finalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and former Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Japan will be led by Naomi Osaka when they take on Spain who will have Carla Suarez Navarro as their leading player. The latter are fifth seeds but of course with the likes of Garbine Muguruza missing aren't taking their highest quality team to La Manga.

Andreescu set to return in strong Canada line-up

Speaking of strong teams, Canada are fielding one of the strongest teams in the field. Bianca Andreescu is slated to return to action in Switzerland but this of course remains to be seen, she will lead the side.

17-year old Leylah Annie Fernandez who made her Australian Open debut recently is also part of the line-up. As is Wimbledon finalist Genie Bouchard who made a resurgent run recently in Auckland.

This is rounded out with Gaby Dabrowski who is ranked 8th in doubles and reached the semi-finals in the mixed doubles and Quarter-Finals in Women's Doubles in Melbourne.

They will face Switzerland who have World No.7 Belinda Bencic involved when they take to the court on home soil in Biel.

Mertens and Flipkens lead Belgium's charge

Belgium will have Elise Mertens and Kirsten Flipkens leading their charge. Mertens is high up in both singles and doubles rankings and similar can be said for Flipkens meaning both could form a dream team against Kazakhstan.

They have two stand out names in Yulia Putintseva and Zarina Diyas but are missing Elena Rybakina who is having a great 2020 so far.

Then finally it is the turn of Slovakia against Great Britain. The former have Viktoria Kuzmova as their leading light while Heather Watson will look to use some of her early season form to lead by example for the latter.

They also have prospects such as Harriet Dart and Katie Swan. The former coming off the back of a second round loss to Simona Halep at the Australian Open.

Their main names to miss out though include Johanna Konta and Katie Boulter who both were instrumental last year when they reached World Group II beating Kazakhstan. Instead Naiktha Bains and Emma Raducanu ranked 201 and 375 in the World respectively will get their Fed Cup debuts in the depleted Britain team.

Fed Cup 2020 Qualifiers Schedule (all ties to take place on 7-8 Feb 2020)

USA (1) v Latvia
Netherlands v Belarus (2)
Romania (3) v Russia
Brazil v Germany (4)
Spain (5) v Japan
Switzerland (6) v Canada
Belgium (7) v Kazakhstan
Slovakia v Great Britain (8)

https://twitter.com/FedCup/status/1223199903129784320?s=20

Samuel GillEditor-in-Chief

Samuel Gill is the Chief Content Officer (CCO) of TennisUpToDate.com, a role he has held since 2020. He is responsible for editorial governance across the platform, including setting content standards, overseeing accuracy and consistency, and guiding long-term editorial strategy. Since joining, he has contributed more than 10,000 articles and editorial pieces across the TennisUpToDate network, playing a central role in the daily operation and development of the site.

Based in Leicester, Samuel has a broad background in tennis media. In his current role, he works closely with editors and writers to ensure coverage meets clear journalistic standards, with particular attention to verification, consistency, and timely updates when new information becomes available.

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