New life has been breathed into the Billie Jean King Cup, and team USA

I’ll stay out there for as long as it takes and do whatever I need to do. . . I’m always willing to make it ugly and get scrappy. Emma Navarro on her Billie Jean King Cup debut, a three-set win over Belgium’s Hanne Vandewinkel that set up U.S. teammate Jessica Pegula’s tie-clinching win the following day.

It was heartening to witness the grit of Pegula and Navarro as the Americans recently battled for a berth in the November BJK Cup Finals. There they were, before a sparse home crowd in Lake Nona, Fla., heiresses-in-the-waiting slugging it out with feisty rivals—their Belgian opponents were ranked No. 278 and No. 279—like a couple of punch-drunk palookas.

Terry Pegula, Jessica’s father, is worth an estimated $6.8 billion. Emma’s dad, Ben, is good for $3 billion. But behold their progeny, clawing and kicking and fist-pumping their way to hard-fought wins.

These two young women are more likely to be found sitting in an ice bath, not a nail salon. They probably spend their time reading The Art of War rather than Vogue (not that it prevented the fashion bible from publishing a feature on Pegula last year.) When I asked Cup veteran Pam Shriver if she found the demographics amusing, she said, “I find it interesting that neither of these girls would have to roll up her sleeves and grind [at any job], but they do. They’ve really been pretty impressive lately. It’s a good sign for them and the Cup effort, too.”

Set aside those eye-popping details about all that cake for now. In the larger picture, the penultimate “qualifying” round proved to be a very good week for a competition that has known too many bad ones. Known until 2020 as Fed Cup—Fed-Up Cup, to critics of the struggling enterprise—the international team event has been reformatted and rebranded. Fed Cup always played second fiddle to men’s Davis Cup (which has also undergone a painful but promising recent makeover), but that may be changing. After all, it’s a propitious moment for women’s team sports, as evidenced by the sensational success of the women’s NCAA basketball tournament.

Kathy Rinaldi, the U.S. captain for seven years until 2023, knew some of the hard times.

"When I took over as captain we hadn’t won in 17 years,” she told me. Still a USTA coach, Rinaldi added, “The event used to be a hard sell, but the recent changes [most prominently, an embrace of the 12-team final to be held this year in Seville, Spain] have been good for tennis. It’s great that so many countries can make it to the final now.”

Tennis has led the way for decades, and the growth of women’s basketball is good for us. When women’s sports elevate, tennis grows too. Pam Shriver

Tennis has long been a trailblazer for women’s sports, especially at the professional level. But women’s team sports have been a tougher sell. But, as Shiver added, “The whole tide of women's sports is rising. Tennis has led the way for decades, and the growth of women’s basketball is good for us. When women’s sports elevate, tennis grows too.”

Top players of either gender haven’t always answered the call of the Cup, mostly for reasons having to do with an overloaded calendar. Neither top-ranked Coco Gauff nor Danielle Collins, the sensation of the early spring, were available to play against Belgium. But fueled partly by patriotism and partly by growing interest in team competition (Pegula also enjoyed playing on the co-ed United Cup back in January), BJK Cup may be achieving greater gravitas.

“It's just incredibly special,” Navarro said. “To be wearing USA colors, 'USA' on our jackets, it kind of became real when we put the tracksuits on for the draw ceremony. It's an incredible honor to be in this position.”

The feeling doesn’t appear to be limited to the U.S., either. Elsewhere around the world during qualifying week, nine of the 16 teams in the top-tier World Group featured their top-ranked players, a cohort that included Iga Swiatek (Poland), Caroline Garcia (France), Naomi Osaka (Japan) and Ukraine (Elina Svitolina).

Rinaldi stepped away from her role this year, replaced by rookie captain and BJK Cup veteran Lindsay Davenport. The Tennis Channel analyst, now 47, earned great reviews from the critics, including former skipper Mary Joe Fernandez. A BJK Cup stalwart, Fernandez served as captain for eight mostly lean years of wavering player commitment ending in 2016.

“I was thrilled to see Lindsay be the captain,” Fernandez told me. “She knows so much about the game, she’s such a team player. She herself always answered the call as a player so she’s going to create a great culture for the American women. They struggled in the tie, but found a way to win and it had a lot to do with Lindsay being there.”

The players, the critics who matter most, concurred.

“Lindsay is such a role model to all of us,” said Caroline Dolehide, who partnered to win the doubles with Taylor Townsend. “Lindsay has been a role model our whole lives. Just to have somebody choose us to be a part of this team—it means so much.”

Rinaldi, who sat on the U.S. team bench, added, “The culture this time was great, which wasn’t always the case back when I started. But this was just a great crew, with a lot of support and healthy competition among themselves.”

Granted, the Americans were an overwhelming favorite in this tie. But with Gauff and Collins absent, the Belgians sensed opportunity. Many tennis powers have toppled in comparable scenarios. The pressures baked into Davis or BJK Cup, especially at home ties, have been extensively documented. As this wasn’t Pegula’s first Cup rodeo, and she gave the rookie Navarro a perfect summation before her debut.

“You kind of just have to take everything you think you know from the tour and throw it out the window of BJK Cup,” Pegula said. “It doesn't really matter what they're ranked. Nothing kind of matters. I don't know. It's like you're starting from zero.”

For years, the U.S. team operated like a carousel, with stars hopping on and off. As many as 10 different players appeared in a red, white and blue kit in any given year. But in Pegula, a seasoned Top 5 veteran, and Navarro, who is staking out her turf as one of those players who just knows how to win, the U.S. now appears to have the nucleus of a dedicated team—which is exactly what it will take to claim the BJK Cup.

Ugly and scrappy worked for a team that started from zero, but traveled from zero to heroes pretty fast.