{"id":5582,"date":"2013-02-07T15:12:47","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T07:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=5582"},"modified":"2013-02-07T15:12:47","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T07:12:47","slug":"stosur-believes-in-australias-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2013\/02\/07\/stosur-believes-in-australias-chances","title":{"rendered":"Stosur believes in Australia\u2019s chances"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Czech Republic\u2019s No.1 player Petra Kvitova currently flounders at her lowest ranking in almost two years. Their second-ranked player, Lucie Safarova, has won just three of seven matches in 2013. Aussies Casey Dellacqua and Ash Barty arrive at the tie full of confidence after their run to the Australian Open women\u2019s doubles final.<\/p>\n

In Sam Stosur\u2019s eyes, the Australian team are in with a fighting chance against the mightiest of Fed Cup teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf ever there is a good time (to face the Czechs), now it is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings can change quickly in tennis so it\u2019s good to try and use all those (factors) to our advantage. But the Czech girls love playing Fed Cup and playing at home I\u2019m sure they are going to be very motivated to bring their best tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, a World Group opening-round assignment against the Czechs represents what Stosur believes is arguably the toughest Fed Cup test she\u2019s ever faced.<\/p>\n

Playing on home soil in Ostrava on an indoor hardcourt laid over an ice-rink, the central European nation is the two-time defending Fed Cup champion, boasting the 2011 Wimbledon champion in Kvitova and one of the strongest doubles combinations in the world in Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka, who won the French Open doubles title the same year.<\/p>\n

And while the Czech women are used to the bitterly cold Northern Hemisphere winter temperatures that have seen Europe completely blanketed in snow, the Aussie team are coming from a warm summer Down Under, making their adjustment to the vastly different climes a significant factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t been outside for more than three minutes a day here,\u201d Stosur revealed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hotel is warm and inside the venue it\u2019s warm even though the court is laid on top of an ice-rink \u2013 it\u2019s low bouncing and there\u2019s a hollow sound. In Europe these are fairly common conditions but we don\u2019t have courts like that in Australia, so it does take a little bit of time to adjust.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Stosur, this Fed Cup tie couldn\u2019t come quickly enough.<\/p>\n

The world No.9 will be desperate to put firmly behind her the disappointment of another underwhelming Australian summer campaign, which featured opening round losses in Brisbane and Sydney before a heart-wrenching second round loss to Zheng Jie at Melbourne Park.<\/p>\n

Following that, she returned to her home base in Sydney and hit the practice courts with a vengeance \u201cpretty much like my pre-season\u201d, while also relaxing with some barefoot bowls and enjoying some much-needed down time.<\/p>\n

The 2011 US Open champion has proved she can impressively bounce back from such setbacks, having done so just 12 months ago \u2013 after a forgettable January in Australia she recovered to lift the Australian team to a comprehensive World Group II first round win over Switzerland in Fribourg, winning both of her singles matches in straight sets.<\/p>\n

In fact, Stosur hasn\u2019t dropped a set in Fed Cup action since losing tight three-set matches against Italians Francesca Schiavone and Flavia Pennetta in Hobart in February 2011. She\u2019s a sparkling 29-9 in her Fed Cup career, including 23-9 in singles play.<\/p>\n

Her stellar play in Fed Cup can be partly attributed to the pleasure she gets from playing in a team environment, vastly different from the somewhat solitary lifestyle of week-in-week-out play on the WTA Tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just the players but also the support team \u2013 it\u2019s a lot different from the rest of the year and win or lose we always give the best we\u2019ve got and enjoy it and the team dynamic. During the year it\u2019s usually all just about you but one of the nice things about Fed Cup week is that it\u2019s about everyone,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

Her results when representing her country give the Queenslander hope that she and her team can cause an upset victory over the highly-fancied Czechs in Ostrava.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are defending champs and the best team in the world, but last year when we played Germany in Germany (in their World Group Play-off tie in April), we weren\u2019t given much of a chance and we went through that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously going to be tough but we definitely have the chance to win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Czech Republic\u2019s No.1 player Petra Kvitova currently flounders at her lowest ranking in almost two years. Their second-ranked player, Lucie Safarova, has won just three of seven matches in 2013. Aussies Casey Dellacqua and Ash Barty arrive at the tie full of confidence after their run to the Australian Open women\u2019s doubles final. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5894,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}