Collins, Pegula, Townsend Lead USA for King Cup Finals

By Tennis Now | @Tennis_Now | Monday, September 16, 2024
Picture credit score: Clive Brunskill/Getty for ITF

US Open finalist Jessica Pegula and Miami Open champion Danielle Collins will head the USA’ quest to reclaim the Billie Jean King Cup.

Captain Lindsay Davenport chosen Collins, Pegula, US Open combined doubles finalist Taylor Townsend, Caroline Dolehide and Peyton Stearns to the U.S. squad that can ed November 13-20 on the Palacio de Deportes Jose Maria Martin Carpena Area in Malaga, Spain.

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World No. 3 Pegula and the Tenth-ranked Collins, enjoying her remaining professional season, give the USA two Prime 10 champions. Coco Gauff, the 2023 US Open champion, and US Open semifinalist Emma Navarro, who each performed on the U.S. Olympic crew in Paris, are usually not on the squad for the Billie Jean King Cup Finals.

Billie Jean King Cup is the World Cup of Ladies’s Tennis, and the Finals – a 12-nation, knockout-style bracket – will crown this 12 months’s champion.

The U.S. will play Slovakia within the first spherical on November 14, with the winner advancing to play Australia within the quarterfinals.

Every tie might be a best-of-three competitors with two singles matches and one doubles match. The total discipline, schedule and ticketing info is offered at billiejeankingcup.com.

This 12 months will see each the U.S. Billie Jean King Cup and Davis Cup groups competing alongside each other, with each Finals scheduled to be performed in Malaga on the identical venue in consecutive weeks. The Davis Cup Closing 8 might be performed on the Carpena Area from November 19-24.

America is the all-time chief with 18 Billie Jean King Cup titles and can hope so as to add to that this 12 months by bringing a crew with two Prime-10 singles gamers and two Prime-15 doubles gamers.

Pegula, 30, is now the top-ranked American girl at No. 3 after her run to the US Open singles remaining. She’s 5-1 in singles and 1-1 in doubles in Billie Jean King Cup competitors and has clinched Qualifying victory for the U.S. every of the final three years.

Collins, 30, is ranked No. 10 in singles and has gone 39-15 with two WTA titles in 2024 after asserting she’d retire on the finish of the 12 months. She’s 7-1 all-time in Billie Jean King Cup singles, together with a 2-0 document in final 12 months’s Finals, and has competed within the Finals in every of the final three years.

Dolehide, 26, is ranked No. 45 in singles and No. 12 in doubles. She received her second profession WTA 1000 doubles title this summer time in Toronto and received in doubles with Townsend within the U.S. crew’s qualifying win over Belgium in April.

Townsend, 28, is a career-high Prime-5 doubles participant at present ranked No. 8 in doubles and No. 47 in singles. She’s received three tour-level doubles titles this 12 months, together with her first Grand Slam at Wimbledon, and reached the combined doubles remaining on the US Open as a wild card crew with the retiring Donald Younger. She’s 4-1 all-time in Billie Jean King Cup doubles competitors.

Stearns, 22, is ranked No. 48 in singles. She had her Billie Jean King Cup debut nomination for final 12 months’s Finals and received her first WTA singles title this previous Could. She helped lead the College of Texas to consecutive NCAA crew championships in 2021-22 and received the NCAA girls’s singles title in 2022 as a sophomore earlier than turning professional.