Fed Cup Asia Oceania competition postponed

The delay could be a blessing in disguise for Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza who will need time to recover from her calf injury.

Sania won her first tournament on return in Hobart, but retired midway through the first round with Nadiia Kichenok of Ukraine at the Australian Open.

 

After a day’s training at the DLTA Complex, the assembled players of the Indian team went back home, after the International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced on Twitter that the Fed Cup Asia-Oceania group-1 women’s tennis event, scheduled to be held in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan, from February 4 to 8, had been postponed.

“The ITF is working with the six competing nations, China, India, Korea, Chinese Taipei, Uzbekistan and Indonesia to reschedule. Further details will be announced shortly,” the ITF stated in another tweet.

The captain of the Indian team Vishaal Uppal said that Rutuja Bhosale and Sowjanya Bavisetti were flying back home.

“We should be hearing from the ITF in another day or so, about the new dates and venue,” said the captain.

The six-team round robin competition, from which two teams will qualify for the World Group-2 play-off was originally scheduled to be held in Dongguan, China. It got shifted to Kazakhstan because travelling to China was hard for everyone, owing to the emergency situation following outbreak of the coronavirus.

The delay could be a blessing in disguise for the Indian team, as the former World No.1 and six-time Grand Slam champion, Sania Mirza, returning to the professional circuit after more than two years, would get some more time to recover from the calf injury.

Sania won her first tournament on return in Hobart, but retired midway through the first round with Nadiia Kichenok of Ukraine at the Australian Open, to avoid aggravating the calf injury.