The United States Launches Its Defense of the Fed Cup Championship

Let’s Do It AGAIN The United States launches its defense of the Fed Cup championship. BY ANDREW LAWRENCE

efore hitting her first match ball in 2018, CoCo Vandeweghe stopped prowling the baseline for the Stars and Stripes. roughed out some goals for herself. The thing that ranks When Davenport, a three-time Fed Cup champion who holds the U.S. highest? No, not cracking the top five in the world rankings record for most years played, called time on her Hall of Fame career in or claiming her first major championship—you know, the 2008, it was assumed that Serena Williams would carry the States through Bmilestones that usually figure foremost on every rising player’s short another decade of dominance. But Fed Cup is not a one-woman show. list. Instead, Vandeweghe’s priority is helping the United States to a Williams, who played alongside Davenport on the 1999 title team, built a repeat victory in Fed Cup, a journey that begins at the U.S. Cellular 13-1 record in seven Fed Cup appearances thereafter, yet she hasn’t made Center with this first-round tie against the Netherlands. it to a Fed Cup Final since her ’99 season debut. A successful defense of the Fed Cup championship is a big swing, Venus Williams has played a few more times than Serena, compiling a sure, but that’s typical of Vandeweghe—a posture-perfect purveyor of 23-4 overall record, but she, too, has only the 1999 Final and champi - one of the world’s most wicked first serves. A year ago, however, such an onship on her ledger. This, despite the best efforts of former U.S. Fed Cup achievement would’ve been quite the reach for her and her compatriots. Captain Mary Joe Fernandez, herself a former champion. Apart from First of all, Team USA hadn’t won Fed Cup since 2000. The United Fernandez’s 2012 and ’15 squads, which included both Williams sisters, States, despite a record 17 titles, hardly looked the part of the most she mostly filled her rosters with America’s greenest, most promising successful nation in Fed Cup history. The Czech Republic was domi - talents—young women such as Vandeweghe, Alison Riske and Sloane nant, claiming five championships in six years, 2011-2016. The U.S. Stephens. Young women who could really benefit from the experience. looked more like the shell of a juggernaut, like a team that hadn’t been Clearly, Fernandez was playing the long game. A pair of Finals a significant player on the world stage since Lindsay Davenport appearances, in 2009 and ’10, seemed a harbinger of the promise just Photos by Getty Images n m a h o m l c f w W G B O “ o O w e f w A i s o “ c t g W m e o n r h e h o o l n x I n r n v n e e e m i a o a i e s c e n ’ g o a o a i n i p n n e h l a e r c d t v

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