Bencic & Co. beat the Czech Republic and advanced to the semi-finals

After the Olympic summer gold and silver fairy tale in Tokyo, another major success of Swiss tennis is looming in the “Golden City”. The team, led by Captain Heinz Güntart, triumphed in the final tournament in a new form in the toughest group on paper against Germany and the Czech Republic and achieved the group victory. Everything is possible now.

It looked as if Swiss women were having fun as strangers at Prague’s O2 Arena, which was well packed for the first time this week. They repeatedly emphasized the strength of the Czech team in advance, which knew the Olympic champions in their ranks. Finally, the series winner of the last decade (6 wins) had the house advantage.

But the Swiss women didn’t make themselves any smaller – neither before the game and certainly not on the field. Led by the distinguished Belinda Bencic, who played in the decisive doubles alongside Jill Tishman with equal strength, they beat Lucy Hrdecá and Katerina Siniakova 6:3, 6:3. After an early break, the Swiss duo remained unchanged throughout the match with his own serve.

Thanks to Belinda Bencic, the Swiss still had a chance to win the set and thus the semi-finals at a late hour. With her second singles win over the top ten players in 48 hours, the Swiss leader kept her team in the game. The 24-year-old from eastern Switzerland put in a solid performance against Barbora Krejkova and continued Tuesday’s run smoothly against Angelique Kerber. Bencic quickly moved away 3-0, and missed the chances of achieving the result 4-0, and he did not give up despite the rebound and loss of the ball.

Also in the second half, Bencic gave up an early advantage, but remained calm again. She managed the decisive break with a defensive backhand on the streak to become 4:3. In the next service game, Bencic made three consecutive breakout runs before using her first match point nearly two hours later against the world’s number three.

In the first individual, Viktorija Golubic was again preferred to Teichmann. In the duel with Marketa Vondrousova, who was defeated in Indian Wells, the Zurich girl played for almost half an hour. With a score of 4:1 in the first set and the Czech serve, Golubic offered three break points to become 5:1, but was unable to use them. Then the thread broke. By the end of the first set, Golubic won only one point out of 20. Even after that, she did not stand against the Olympic qualification.

The Swiss Women will continue on Friday. In the second semi-final, they will face Australia, winners of Group B and finalists of 2019, when the competition was held for the last time in the old format and under the Fed Cup name. And he leads the Australian team, Agla Tomljanovic, ranked 43 in the WTA rankings. In the first semi-final there will be a duel between Russia and the United States.