By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, November 13, 2015
Russia faces defending champion Czech Republic in this weekend's Fed Cup Final in Prague.
Photo credit: Paul Zimmer/Fed Cup
The Fed Cup Final figures to be a clash of first-strike tennis.
Power players will face off in Prague when the Czech Republic hosts Russia in this weekend's final at the 10,850-seat O2 Arena. The draw was conducted today in Prague.
Video: Russians Face Fed Cup Questions
Czech No. 1 Petra Kvitova will play Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in tomorrow's opening singles match that pits a pair of players on a roll.
Kvitova has won eight straight Fed Cup matches on home soil. The left-hander owns a 25-6 Fed Cup singles record, with her last home loss coming against former No. 1 Ana Ivanovic in the 2012 final at the O2 Arena.
The 28th-ranked Pavlyuchenkova, who finished the season winning 12 of her final 14 matches, including capturing the Linz crown and falling to Svetlana Kuznetsova in the Moscow final, is 3-0 in Fed Cup singles matches staged on hard court. Kvitova has won six of nine hard-court meetings with Pavlyuchenkova, including four of their seven hard-court clashes.
Contesting her first Fed Cup final, Russian No. 1 Maria Sharapova takes on Karolina Pliskova in the second singles match. It will be the first meeting between the pair.
Sharapova beat both Radwanska sisters helping visiting Russia power past Poland, 4-0, in the February quarterfinals and lifting her record to 5-1 in Fed Cup play.
Now she will try to lead captain Anastasia Myskina's squad to its first Fed Cup championship since 2008.
"We expect to have a great crowd and a very nice atmosphere," Sharapova told FedCup.com. "We are going into this final as underdogs.
"We expect a stadium full of Czechs—I’m sure there will be some Russian flags flying around—but there will be more Czechs in the stadium than Russians. Our full concentration will be on what is ahead of us and not on what’s going on around us."
The marquee match open plays on Sunday with Kvitova playing Sharapova in a rematch of the 2011 Wimbledon final that saw Kvitova sweep Sharapova, 6-3, 6-4, to capture her first career Grand Slam title. At the WTA Finals in Singapore, Kvitova rallied from 1-5 down in the second set to score a 6-3, 7-6 (3) semifinal win over Sharapova.
The former world No. 1 has won six of 10 meetings with Kvitova with both women favoring grip-and-rip first-strike tennis.
Pliskova is scheduled to play Pavlyuchenkova in the fourth singles match. The 23-year-old Czech was a 6-2, 6-4 victor in their lone meeting in Dubai earlier this year.
In doubles, world No. 9 Lucie Safarova is set to partner Barbora Strycova against the Russian pair of Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova, who won the 2013 Roland Garros and 2014 US Open doubles titles together. Safarova partnered Bethanie Mattek-Sands to win the Australian Open and Roland Garros doubles crowns this season.
The defending Fed Cup champions have been on a roll reeling off 14 straight live rubbers and five consecutive victories. The Czechs are playing for their ninth Fed Cup championship, including their fourth in the last five years.
"I am (excited for the Final). For sure. Actually, I am very excited that they are coming in full power, so that's great, to have amazing final at home," Kvitova said. "It's going to be full again. It's going to be a lot of nerves again. And exciting. So I'm really looking forward to do that."