On Saturday, the Alpstar Austria Billie Jean King Cup will set out on its next task – a mission that might hardly be harder. On the 14th/15th April, Austria’s national women’s selection at the Delray Beach Tennis Center challenges the record winners of the Billie Jean King Cup, the ladies from the USA. How high this hurdle is is already said by the fact that Austria currently has a WTA top 100 player in Julia Grabher, in position 89 – the hosts, on the other hand, proud 15. In addition, the USA want to be in their pretty strongest Line up with world numbers three and six at the top, Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff, who also form an absolute world-class doubles. The two best ÖTV ladies, Grabher and Sinja Kraus, have recently been in strong form and would like to sell themselves and their country in the US state of Florida at high prices. In the history of international competition between the two nations, the United States is clearly ahead with 7:2.
Exclusion of Capriati: USA cut itself in the flesh
For team leader Marion Maruska, however, memories are awakening these days. Almost 32 years ago, in July 1991 in Nottingham, Great Britain, the 50-year-old from Mödling took part in what was then the fourth duel between the USA and Austria. But the last two comparisons are more firmly anchored in my memory – “We both won them,” smiled the former number 50 in the world. In these two successful years, 2002 and 2004, the ÖTV ladies were sensationally only stopped in the world group semi-finals – an enormously valuable achievement. The second run of this kind in 2002 was without a doubt particularly outstanding. The fact that this started with an unbelievable, completely unexpected coup is now a good 21 years ago, when on 27/28. April had eliminated the United States 3-2 away. This success came as such a surprise that not even local photo agencies made the trip to the international match in Charlotte in the US state of North Carolina, as contemporary witness Maruska recalled – “according to the motto: ‘We’ll lose there anyway.’ Even the Austrian press didn’t give us any chances at the time and put us down in advance.”
Today’s ÖTV sports coordinator, youth officer and Billie Jean King Cup captain Maruska had already started working for the Austrian Tennis Association in September 2001. “My professional career was actually over, but I still trained every day and was called up once more once morest the USA.” And so the woman from the back row saw her feet free from the front row, like Austria’s Fed Cup women, not only the USA defeated, but had already made everything clear following the first three games. With the help of the hosts, Jennifer Capriati, second in the world rankings at the time and a week earlier still number one in the world, had been expelled from the team by US captain Billie Jean King because she did not attend the prescribed team training involved and trained with her father. Therefore, the second individual once morest Evelyn Fauth, for which Capriati had already been set up, ended with a wo victory for Austria – which of course also massively increased the red-white-red chances of success.
Superior Schwartz gave color to black and white vision
The sensational success overseas was particularly due to “an outstanding Barbara Schwartz. It was simply impressive what she did in general this year in the Fed Cup,” said Maruska. On the first day of the game, Schwartz first beat world number six Monica Seles 7: 6 (7), 6: 2, on the second day she scored with the hard-fought 4: 6, 7: 6 (7) and 9: 7 once morest Capriati Meghann Shaughnessy, twelfth in the world rankings, for the decision in favor of the ÖTV ladies. “Back then, there were 3,000 to 4,000 spectators in the open air, and whenever the audience got quiet once more, we cheered on Babsi. Billie Jean King smiled mildly at first, gave me a thumbs-up, ‘I like that’ – she probably didn’t like it that much in the third sentence,” Maruska smiled.
