It’s David and Goliath time in San Diego. David being . . . the US of A? Goliath being . . . Italy? Hey, this underdog thing feels OK. We have to make the most of it whenever we can.
The Italians are the defending Fed Cup champs. They swept the U.S. 4-0 last year, and they’ve got the same team back, including No. 7 Francesca Schiavone and No. 23 Flavia Pennetta. The U.S. will counter with No. 114 Coco Vandeweghe, who has been fired into the starting lineup in place of Melanie Oudin, and No. 58 Bethanie Mattek-Sands. Schiavone has even ramped things up by “warning” the U.S., in the words of one British paper, that the Italians are going to be better than ever after their experience of winning it all last year.
Does America’s B team—Venus and Serena Williams are both injured—have a chance to pull off an upset? They’ll be at home. They’ll be playing on hard courts, unlike last year, when they got stuck in Italy’s red clay. And at least two of the players on this team, Oudin and Mattek-Sands, have come up big for captain Mary Joe Fernandez in the past. The fact that Mattek-Sands will play for the U.S. is poetic justice; it was her performance against Russia in the last round that put the team here.
Fernandez says it was a “match-up decision” to go with Vandeweghe instead of Oudin. “We thought Coco, with her height and her serve, would be better suited to Schiavone.” The two have never faced each other, but Schiavone, while she’s had her peaks and valleys this year, has shown that she isn’t afraid of the moment, and there’s no moment bigger for her or her teammates than the Fed Cup. It’s going to be a major ask for Vandeweghe to beat her, even if she is in her home state, and even if, as Italy’s captain, Corrado Barrazzutti, says, “she must be playing good” for Fernandez to choose her. Vandeweghe is an athlete and a hitter. I’d give her the proverbial “puncher’s chance” if it wasn’t such a cliché (darn, too late, I already wrote it).
The second match on Saturday will be Pennetta vs. Mattek-Sands. This will likely be a must-win for the Americans. But it will be a tough win. Pennetta is 4-1 against her opponent, and she’s coming off an up week in Doha, where she won the doubles with Gisela Dulko and wrapped up the No. 1 ranking. Mattek-Sands will need the crowd, her best game, and a show of nerves from Pennetta. The last part will be the trickiest. Like Schiavone said, Flavia has been here before.
From there, we will see. If the U.S. does come up with one win, the momentum will be with them heading into Sunday. But the odds still won’t. Mattek-Sands would have to beat Schiavone, or Vandeweghe would have to beat Pennetta (Flavia won their only meeting) to get them to the doubles. There, if the match-up plays out as it’s listed on paper—Huber/Oudin vs. Errani/Vinci—the U.S. might have an edge. Huber would be a force.
I would have liked to have seen the Williamses face the Italians—mellow San Diego would have boiled over with intensity. But the David vs. Goliath story is always a winner, too. This time, you have to like Goliath.