RRI Sports Club

Romania to face the Czech Republic in the Fed Cup.

Florin Orban, 06.02.2019, 13:44

Women’s tennis dominates sports news these
days. Romania’s Fed Cup team are meeting the trophy holders, the Czech
Republic, in Ostrava at the weekend. The match is part of the World Group Round
1 and will be played on hard court at the Ostravar Arena, which seats 6,350
spectators.

World no. 3 Simona Halep, world no. 29 Mihaela
Buzarnescu and world no. 105 Ana Bogdan will travel to Ostrava on Monday
together with their non-playing captain Florin Segarceanu and coach Alina
Tecsor. Romania’s Fed Cup team also includes Monica Niculescu and Irina Begu,
who just won the Thailand Open doubles trophy on Sunday. Niculescu is ranked
106th in the world and Begu 75th.

World no. 5 Karolina Pliskova will lead the
Czech team. According to the Fed Cup’s official Twitter page cited by the
Romanian Agerpres news agency, the Czech non-playing captain Petr Pala also called
up Katerina Siniakova, world no. 1 in the WTA doubles ranking, Barbora
Krejcikova, world no. 2 in the doubles ranking, and Marketa Vondrousova, world
no. 73. World no. 2 and Australian Open finalist Petra Kvitova will not be
playing in the Fed Cup matches against Romania because of a busy schedule.

The Czech Republic and Romania last time faced
each in the Fed Cup in 2016 in Cluj, when the Czech team won 3-2. The Czech
Republic have won the competition six times since 2011, only failing to do so
in 2013, when the title went to Italy, and in 2017, when the US won.