Billie Jean King Cup: Jasmine Paolini helps Italy to fifth BJK Cup title

Hyderabad: Italy won their fifth Billie Jean King Cup title after Jasmine Paolini helped Italy beat Slovakia in the final.

Paolini won her second singles over Rebecca Sramkova 6-2, 6-1 to help Italy coast to a 2-0 win.

This was Italy’s first Billie Jean King Cup title in 11 years. The last time Italy won the title was in 2013. Last year, Italy lost to Canada in the final.

Italy and World No. 1 Jannik Sinner was also present among the jubilant Italian fans as Paolini and other members of the team celebrated their win. Sinner had won the ATP Finals title and was crowned the year-end number one player and Paolini capped up a wonderful two weeks for Italian tennis.

Lucia Bronzetti, who was playing her second Billie Jean Cup match, started the proceedings for Italy with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Viktoria Hruncakova in the opening match and set the tone and Paolini finished the job clinically in just about one hour.

An emotional Paolini, ranked fourth on the WTA circuit, said she was proud of how Italian tennis had shaped up in the last couple of weeks. “It is unbelievable, amazing, I don’t have words to describe how I feel right now, it’s just incredible. I think we played an unbelievable week and I’m so proud of how we did it in every match. I’m very happy that this year we finally were able to bring the title back to Italy,” Paolini said after the win.

It was redemption for Paolini, who reached the finals at the Roland Garros and the Wimbledon this year, who lost the final last year to Canada’s Leylah Fernandez 2-6, 3-6.

Paolini said she was motivated to get the win. “When I stepped on court I told myself that I was going to give 100%. If you win, you win. But if you lose you have to accept that. We are going to fight for every ball and it went well for us,” she added.