Want to Play Fed Cup Tennis? Move to New Zealand or Malaysia
Want to play big-time tennis on an actual Federation Cup team? The dream may not be so far fetched.
Two countries with professional tour events, New Zealand and Malaysia have pulled out of their Fed Cup Asia-Oceania zonal group ties, unable to find suitable players to field a team.
Bad luck has hit both Fed Cup squads. New Zealand's Sacha Jones is injured and Marina Erakovic, who is returning from injury, has opted to play a challenger this week in an attempt to boost her ranking. "We didn't think it was viable," said New Zealand federation chief Steve Wood.
The same decision was made by Malaysia when it could not find a second player. They found themselves unable to field a team as Jawairiah [Noordin] is now on her own while another fine player, Neesha Thirumalaichelvam is pursuing her educational opportunities in the United States.
My advice to New Zealand and Malaysia are to pull a Kazakhstan and start recruiting players that would never be selected to play for their homelands. I hear Dinara Safina is available, or maybe one of the Bondarenkos could be had. How about Alison Riske, she cant seem to get any love from Mary Joe Fernandez and the U.S. Fed Cup Team.
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