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If you thought keeping up with the Davis Cup changes was a slog, the Billie Jean King Cup’s constant transformation these days makes it look like a beacon of consistency.
It’s an important event for women’s tennis worldwide, below the top level that most fans see. It deserves optimal winning conditions. But recent years have been a struggle to find a viable format that will appeal to tennis fans and sponsors.
This year, the BJK Cup finals will be held not at the traditional end of the season, but the week of Sept. 16 – so, a week after the end of the US Open. It will run Tuesday through Sunday. It slots between the end of the summer hard-court season with the US Open, and the start of the fall Asian swing.
The location will be Shenzhen, China, in the same arena that hosted the WTA Finals in 2019 as an alternate venue made necessary after delays in China’s pledge to build a brand-new, purpose-built arena for a 10-year stint hosting the jewel in the WTA Tour Crown.
So it’s basically going back to what … did not work for women’s tennis. Not superstitious, apparently.
(As far as we know, that brand-new facility was never built).
Those were the “simpler” days before the pandemic – and before THAT whole deal went sideways and the WTA Finals went on a tour of last-minute, hastily convened venues before finally settling in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last year.
Got that straight? It’s complicated.
Last year’s BJK Cup finals ended up having to move from Seville, Spain to Málaga at the last minute. It put the women in a smaller venue lacking a lot of basic amenities at the same site as the Davis Cup finals. It was far from ideal.
After various format efforts, the BJK Cup has decided to pare down from 12 teams to eight, matching the (also new and revamped) Davis Cup format.
But the teams not in the finals will play … at the end of the season – Nov. 14-16 – in a series of SEVEN locations, to try to get back to the qualifying stages. And then, hopefully, back to the finals.
The seven locations and the 21 teams involved were announced on Thursday. And the gist for the Canadians, who had to travel to Japan in early April for a qualifying tie and did not bring their top squad (and lost) will have to go to Monterrey, Mexico to try to get back to the top tier.
They’ll have host Mexico and … Denmark in their group, and will play one tie (two singles and a doubles) against each nation to try avoid relegation.
(It seems a century ago – but was in fact only a year and a half ago – that Canada WON the BJK Cup).
Mexico probably isn’t a problem; Denmark has world No. 23 Clara Tauson. If she plays, of course.
Group A – Club Sonoma, Monterrey, Mexico (hard, outdoors)
Canada (1)
Mexico (*)
Denmark
Group B – Arena Gorzow, Gorzow Wielkopolski, Poland (hard, indoors)
Poland (2) (*)
Romania
New Zealand
Group C – Cordoba Lawn Tennis Club, Cordoba, Argentina (clay, outdoors)
Slovakia (3)
Switzerland
Argentina (*)
Group D – Arena Varazdin, Varazdin, Croatia (hard, indoors)
Czechia (4)
Colombia
Croatia (*)
Group E – Domain Tennis Centre, Hobart, Australia (hard, outdoors)
Australia (5) (*)
Brazil
Portugal
Group F – Tennis Club Ismaning, Ismaning, Germany (hard, indoors)
Germany (6) (*)
Belgium
Turkiye
Group G – S.M. Krishna Tennis Stadium, Bengaluru, India (hard, outdoors)
Netherlands (7)
Slovenia
India (*)
As you can see, the venues are literally all over the planet, indoors and outdoors, and on all surfaces (except grass).
The 14 teams who don’t make the cut will drop down to play “Regional Group I” events.
The seven winning teams will stay in and play the qualifiers in 2026.
The BJK Cup promises they’ll go back to “home-and-away” ties from 2026 onwards.
Worth noting that they do have a betting sponsor, 1xBet, among the “global partners”. “These partnerships reflect a collective dedication to advancing opportunity, innovation, and excellence in international women’s tennis,” is how it goes.
GONE are the pool groups that made a trip to the Billie Jean King Cup finals an interesting prospect – for players and fans alike.
Now, it’ll be an eight-nation draw, straight knockout. So if you’re, say, an American nethead thinking of making a trip to China to support your team, you might be one and done if they lose their opener to Elena Rybakina and Kazakhstan.
Assuming you can even get a visa to go. Or would want to go. Or any of the highly-ranked American players will choose to play. The actual specific dates of the quarterfinal ties were finally announced last week.
The semifinals will be Friday and Saturday, and the final on Sunday.
(Host) China v Italy (Tuesday night)
Spain v Ukraine (Wednesday)
Kazakhstan v USA (Thursday-day)
Japan v Great Britain (Thursday-evening)
It will be fascinating to see what kinds of crowds, if any, will support the event beyond the ones involving host China. Which could literally be .. one, as they face Italy in their opener. And it’s unlikely there will be much international media on hand, and the time difference is a challenge for much of the rest of the world.
The capacity at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Centre Arena – also known as the “Spring Cocoon”, is about 13,000. It’s best remembered, ahead of the first and only WTA Tour finals held there, as a location used to stage more than 100 armored carriers and other military vehicles during the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests.
Good times.
– Last week, the Czech Billie Jean King Cup tennis team announced that Barbora Strycova will take over from longtime captain Petr Pala as the steward of the loaded Czech team, as of next January. Under Pala, the Czechs won the BJK Cup six times between 2011 and 2018. Strycova will be “co-captain” for the playoff ties in September, in Croatia.
– Not surprisingly given the circumstances, a Group III Asia/Oceania group tie scheduled for Amman, Jordan this week has been cancelled. “A potential rescheduling will be explored at an appropriate time,” is how the ITF puts it.
There are still four groups of ties going on this week in Peru, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Moldova.
If you want to follow them – tennis truly is an international sport, we’re talking about “Andorra v Azerbaijan” and “Luxembourg v Malta” and “San Marino v Iceland” here, it’s right here.
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