The Czech Republic and Russia will meet in Moscow this weekend for the last women's event of 2011, the Fed Cup final. Steve Tignor has written about the Russians; here, Peter Bodo on the Czechs:
I can think of three good reasons why the Czech Republic will overcome the partisan Moscow crowd and snatch the Fed Cup away from Russia—the most successful Fed Cup squad (with four titles since 2004) since Spain in the 1990s. You know, the under-appreciated Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario/Conchita Martinez teams that won the championship five times in nine years, beginning in 1991. They are:
1. Petra Kvitova has a hot hand.
2. The Czechs have a great Fed Cup tradition.
3. Svetlana Kuznetsova, the star and veteran of the Russian club, is spectacularly unreliable.
So let's take them in order. Kvitova is 19-0 indoors this year, a record that more than makes up for the fact that the indoor court on which the tie will be decided is in Moscow. Kvitova is also riding an 10-match winning streak, and has had enough time off to rest after she ran the table at the WTA Championships last week—but not so much time that her momentum has been arrested.
Before we get into the handicapping, let's keep in mind that Russian captain Shamil Tarpischev is to Fed and Davis Cup what Emperor Palpatine is to Star Wars or Ernst Stavro Blofeld is to the James Bond thrillers. He's the evil genius (at least in the eyes of less Machivallean captains and rivals) who specializes in playing mind games, often by making surprise nominations, like choosing WTA No. 27 Maria Kirilenko as the second singles player for Russia, even though Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova is ranked No. 15 and penciled in only as half of the official Russian doubles team.
Granted, Kirilenko has been solid in the fall (she made her first semifinal of the year at Guangzhou and had a win over new U.S. Open champ Sam Stosur in Beijing, where she reached the quarters), but Pavyluchenkova also has played reasonably well of late. Tarprischev must be relying on the head-to-head stats more than the rankings, because Kirilenko is a combined 6-1 against Kvitova and Czech No. 2 Lucie Safarova, while Pavlyuchenkova is 5-3 against them. However, Kirilenko got both her wins over Kvitova in 2009, and they haven't played since. And Petra Kvitova is not the same player today as she was in 2009.
When you have a Kvitova in your line-up, you're always hoping that she'll play the first match to get the tie off on right foot for you. And when you're playing away from home, you want to take the crowd out—it certainly makes life easier for your No. 2 player in the second match. I think the Czechs got the draw they wanted, with Kvitova and Kirilenko opening the ball.
The fact that Kirilenko hasn't completed a match since Beijing, way back at the beginning of October (she rolled an ankle in her last tournament, Luxembourg) tells me that Kvitova just might swarm all over her to open the tie. And while home-field advantage is desirable, there's also such a thing as home-field pressure. I expect Kvitova to do what she's done all fall. That is, roll.
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It's a little harder to quantify the value of tradition, but I think it's important in Fed Cup. The Czech Republic has a distinguished history in tennis and, unlike many other nations now in the spotlight (including Russia and Serbia), it did not come to the game recently. The Czechs have captured the title five times, starting way back in 1975, when a team led by Martina Navratilova defeated an Australian squad featuring Evonne Goolagong Cawley at the neutral site of Aix-en-Provence, France. Incidentally, back in those days a tie consisted of just three matches, two singles (with the No. 2 and No. 1 players playing each other) and a doubles. Although the match was on red clay, Navratilova led her team to a sweep—the Czechs didn't lose a set—with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Cawley.
Anyway, that tradition and the pride it fosters in the players counts for a lot in Fed Cup. Playing an away match is always good for team spirit, at least on teams made up of friends, like this Czech unit. I believe they're going to look at this foray to Moscow as a hunting expedition and opportunity against a team that isn't nearly as strong as it has been in recent years.
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Which brings us to the third reason, Kuznetsova. In all fairness, I have to admit that the veteran leader (she's 26) and star of the Russian side could very well come up big and make up for a lot of the disappointment her fans have felt in recent months—and years. But the two-time Grand Slam champ is in one of her down phases, having been blown out without offering much resistance in her last two tournaments (against No. 18 Ana Ivanovic in Beijing, and No. 43 Kaia Kanepi in Moscow). But she's a real Fed Cup stalwart who understands how highly her compatriots value competitions in which you wear your flag instead of your name on your back.
Kuznetsova, now down to No. 19 in the rankings, is 15-6 overall in Davis Cup singles, 6-2 on the kind of hard court that will be used in Moscow's Olympic stadium. She's an unremarkable 2-1 against the Czech No. 2 Safarova, but their last meeting was way back in Cincinnati in 2009, and it went to a third-set tiebreaker before Kuznetsova squeaked it out. Kuznetsova has only declined since then, while 24-year-old Safarova has made steady progress, and at No. 24 is just two ticks way from her career-high singles ranking.
Surprisingly, Kvitova and Kuznetsova have never played each other. I think that favors Kvitova, because her big, serve-based, lefty game isn't a common feature on the WTA, nor is it easy to adjust to and read. The ITF's Fed Cup Twitter feed tells us that the Russians have corralled all kinds of left-handers to prepare them for the brace of southpaws who will play singles for the Czech Republic. My advice to Tarpischev, although I'll bet he's already on it, would be to bring in left-handed men to prepare Kuznetsova and Kirilenko for the 6'0'' tall Kvitova and her power.
The Czech doubles teams of Lucie Hradecka and Kveta Peschke are 1-1 in Fed Cup play. The match they lost to Italy in the World Group semifinal in 2010 was a dead rubber (the Italians swept the Czechs then, 5-0), but the one they won, in the previous round against Germany, clinched the tie. Russians Elena Vesnina and Pavlyuchenkova have no Fed Cup record as a team; Vesnina is 4-2 with an array of partners, including Kuznetsova and Nadia Petrova. Pavlyuchenkova is 2-1 in Fed Cup doubles, and has partnered with the same two stalwarts—plus Ekaterina Makarova. I'd call the doubles a toss-up, but the handicapping may be moot because. . . when has Tarpischev not juggled his line-up?
I can see only one scenario in which Tarpischev wouldn't try to pull a surprise, and that's if the Russians jump out to a 2-0 lead on Saturday. But I don't believe they'll do that. In fact, if anyone is going to take command of the tie it will be the Czechs, led by the best player in the world at this time, Petra Kvitova.