Tough luck for the Waffle Nation. What looked to be a relatively straight-forward tie against the Czech Republic for a spot in the Fed Cup finals turned into an evenly matched battle once Kim injured her shoulder/foot/head/heart/whatever. After Wicky fell to Petra, fading in three sets, Flipper came through HUGE by beating BZS in straights.
BZS got the last cackle though, teaming up with Iveta to beat WickyFlips (feel free to use that as a product name, Belgian waffle spatula-making company!) 64 64 in the deciding dubs. I'm not a big fan of Team Czech but props to them. It took a team to get it done today, with all three team members responsible for a point.
And props to Petra Chihuatova. I didn't know how she would do this weekend against Wicky given her weird losses since Australia. Way to bounce back, girl.
So the first-time Fed Cup finalists will meet the seasoned pros of Mother Russia for the Cup. Bepa, Sveta, Pavs, and Maks took care of business against an Awesomeless Italian team, rolling to a 5-0 win after Italy was forced to field a team anchored by Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci. In singles. Yeah.
There was a bit of hubbabloo made (by the press) about some quotes from Roberta Vinci regarding Frank and Flav's absence. According to Uncle Jamie, Reuters claims Vinci "blasted" them, but the AP says she didn't. I have a really hard time thinking that Vinci would say anything bad about them at all and my official opinion is that something was lost in translation. Besides, if Vinci did slag them, wouldn't the Italian press have picked up on it? According to my sources (random fans on Twitter who speak Italian) the quotes haven't made any waves at all. So let's not, huh?
I am sooooooooo interested to see the team Shamil puts together for the final. Could we see Masha? Could we? COULD WE????
(Pics: Getty, AP)
