France Name Unchanged Fed Cup team for Final against Australia
France have announced their list of players for the Fed Cup final against Australia which will take place on November 9th and 10th. The final is to be held in Perth, Australia.
The French captain Julien Benneteau named the five best players in the rankings for the team - Kristina Mladenovic, Caroline Garcia, Alize Cornet, Fiona Ferro and Pauline Parmentier, in that order. The team remains unchanged as compared to the squad that defeated Romania in April.
39th ranked Mladenovic is now the top-ranked Frenchwoman in the team, ahead of former doubles partner 45th ranked Caroline Garcia. In all likelihood, Garcia will take on top-ranked Australian and World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty on the first day and Mladenovic would take on the Australian No. 2 - likely to be Alja Tomljanovic.
The Australian team consists of Barty, Tomljanovic, Samantha Stosur, Astra Sharma and Priscilla Hon. This would be the first time that Tomljanovic is representing Australia as she has earlier played under the Croatian flag. The 51st ranked Tomljanovic was only permitted to play under the Australian flag two weeks ago by the ITF.
According to AFP, Benneteau commented, "So far, these five players have turned up every time. I have confidence in these five to take up this huge challenge. Today, there is only Fiona who has not played singles in this Fed Cup campaign. I told them, and I will tell them again, that I need everyone and that everyone must be prepared to play anytime and against anybody, in singles or in doubles."
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