Kartal and Boulter throw punches but Britain KO’d by classy Czechs

Keothavong hails players’ efforts after Billie Jean King Cup quarter-final defeat against a team featuring Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova

Simon Briggs Tennis Correspondent and Senior Feature Writer Show biography

Simon Briggs writes about tennis, cricket and a variety of other sports. Having begun his Telegraph career in 1996 as a music critic, he joined the sports desk four years later. He is the author of two books on sporting history – one on the Ashes and one on the England football team. He can be found on social media at @simonrbriggs.

The return of Sonay Kartal – the former world No 44 from Brighton – after a six-month injury lay-off offered a spark of encouragement amid the predictable defeat of the British women’s team in Shenzhen.

To go down to the Czech Republic in the quarter-finals of the Billie Jean King Cup is no disgrace: the Czechs are as inescapable on the modern WTA Tour as athletic young clergymen were in the early days of lawn tennis.

In the circumstances, Tuesday’s 2-0 defeat can hardly be read as a wasted opportunity for Anne Keothavong’s team – not when Katie Boulter ran into recent Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova, and Kartal slugged away bravely while extending world No 26 Marie Bouzkova to three hours.

“For both these players, it required their absolute best and a bit of luck for the result to go our way,” said Keothavong. “I can’t fault their efforts. The Czechs are the strongest team here. I’d be surprised if they don’t go on to win this competition.”

The BJK Cup’s official rankings system shows Great Britain in second place, behind only Italy – champions in each of the past two seasons. This is a tribute to the phenomenal consistency that Keothavong has achieved: four appearances at the finals event over the past five years.

But while a strong team ethic can carry you a long way in this competition, it usually takes at least one outstanding individual to lift the trophy. And with Boulter standing as our top-ranked woman, at No 54 in the world, the only weaker nation among the eight who have travelled to this year’s finals in Shenzhen is Belgium.

Tuesday’s singles matches were both competitive, except for the 25 minutes it took Noskova to establish a 4-0 lead. A nervous Boulter kept double-faulting in those early stages, but once she had settled, she more than held her own in the baseline exchanges. Unfortunately, Noskova can always fall back on her sniper’s rifle of a serve, which was so accurate that it landed 15 aces in her 6-2, 7-6 win.

Kartal came closer against Bouzkova, taking a 2-1 lead with a break in the deciding set, before eventually fading to a 7-6, 4-6, 6-4 defeat. When you consider that her last competitive match – which happened to be against world No 1 Elena Rybakina – was played on March 11, this was a sterling effort.

It looked as though Kartal had remodelled her serve slightly over her lengthy absence from the match court, which was dictated by a spinal stress fracture. She was dropping the racket deeper at the back of the motion, and she did a decent job of holding serve throughout most of this match, despite Bouzkova’s ability to make her play one or two extra balls in every rally.

At 5ft 4in tall, Kartal is not one of the tour’s power-hitters, but she loads her groundstrokes – especially the forehand – with so much heavy top-spin that she can spread play wide on both flanks and keep her opponent moving. Bouzkova felt like she had to run a marathon in this match, but she is built like an endurance athlete and she finished stronger in the end.

“For our captain to trust me, it means a lot,” said Kartal. “I can look back at that performance and be happy. I know I had my chances, but it gives myself a lot of confidence going forwards for the rest of the Asian swing, knowing the first match back, that was the level I produced.”

Kartal has been one of three leading British stars to miss large stretches of the tennis year, leaving newcomer Arthur Fery as the only player of either sex to make any impact at the sharp end of the game in 2026.

The other high-profile absentees are Jack Draper – who has already shut down his season because of a chronic elbow injury – and Emma Raducanu, who might be wise to do the same, as it would allow her to claim a protected ranking of No 42 going into next year’s Australian Open.

Meanwhile, Britain’s men went into the hat in the Davis Cup draw, before their own eight-team finals event in Bologna at the end of November. Germany emerged as their quarter-final opponents in a tie which is likely to throw up a restaging of Fery’s Wimbledon semi-final against Alexander Zverev.

The second singles match could pit Toby Samuel against world No 67 Daniel Altmaier. And if the doubles rubber were to be required, Britain’s trump card – the pairing of Henry Patten and Neal Skupski – would start as favourites, but only just, against the experienced Tim Pütz and Kevin Krawietz.