The duel for relegation was above all a game of nerves for the young DTB team – without a happy ending.
Germany’s women’s tennis team suffered a historic defeat in the Billie Jean King Cup and dropped into the third division for the first time in their history. In Oeiras, Portugal, team boss Torben Beltz’s team lost 2:1 to outsider Lithuania in the playdown after taking the lead, with the match tie-break in the third set of the doubles deciding the match. After being relegated from the World Group last year, the DTB team thus slipped into Regional Group II of the prestigious international competition less than six months later.
On the inconspicuous outdoor court at the tennis facility west of Lisbon, Noma Noha Akugue showed some nerves of steel in the first singles match against Andre Lukosiute in a hard-fought 6:4, 6:4, and at the start of the second set she conceded the double break against the world number 597. “It was very windy”, explained the 22-year-old, “I just tried to somehow play the ball in”, accept the situation and “play my best tennis”.
Seidel collapses completely after a dream start
Ella Seidel, Germany’s number one in the absence of the injured Eva Lys, then missed the chance to make a preliminary decision. The world number 85 got off to a dream start against Justina Mikulskyte 6:1, 3:6, 2:6 – followed by a complete collapse. The turnaround was also not to be achieved in the final doubles match. Noha Akugue and Nastasja Schunk lost to Lukosiute/Mikulskyte 7:5, 3:6, 8:10.
The inexperienced DTB team had already experienced several disappointments in the past few days: The previously formulated goal of regaining promotion was quickly ticked off due to the defeats against Portugal and Sweden – the surprising defeat against tennis development country Lithuania and the associated drop to third class is now tantamount to a disaster.
The road back to the top of the competition, which the DTB won twice as the Fed Cup in the Steffi Graf era (1987, 1992), is further than ever.