Indian tennis stars Sania Mirza and Ankita Raina to be in action against Latvia in the playoffs
Eurosport and Eurosport HD India, the premium sports channels from the house of Discovery, are all set to delight the Indian tennis fans with exhilarating action from Billie Jean Cup Playoffs 2021 as India go head to head against home team Latvia. This will be the first time that both the teams will be facing each other in the competition. The tie which will go on for two days shall be LIVE for the Indian fans on April 16th , Friday and April 17th, Saturday from 8:30 PM and 4:30 PM IST onward respectively.
The Billie Jean King Cup, earlier known as the Fed Cup, is a team event for women’s tennis playersand this is the first time that the Indian team has made it to the play-offscourtesy topping the Asia/Oceania Group 1 last year. A win will guarantee them a spot in the BJK Cup qualifiers for 2022 while the loser of the tie shall compete in their respective regional Group 1 event in 2022.
The matches will be played on indoor hardcourts at the National Tennis Center Lielupe, in Jurmala – the fifth-largest city in Latvia. Latvia will be playing with a full strength team headlined byworld No. 52 Jelena Ostapenko, the 2017 French Open champion along with Anastasija Sevastova, a former world No 11 who is now ranked 47th in the world. Diana Marcinkevica, Daniela Vismane and PatricijaSpaka complete the five-member squad of Latvia. The captain of the team will be former Latvian men’s player AdriansZguns.
For India, six-time doubles grand slam champion Sania Mirza will be spearheading theteam and will be accompanied by her teammates Ankita Raina, Rutuja Bhosale, Zeel Desai and Karman Kaur Thandi. Ankita Raina will be the highest ranked Indian on display in the tie with a singles rank of 174 and a doubles rank of 96.The team will be captained by former Indian Player Vishal Uppal.
Speaking on the occasion, Vijay Rajput, Senior Vice President – Affiliate sales and Product Distribution, Asia – India Sales & Distribution at Discovery Inc. and Head of Eurosport India said, “Tennis is one of the most popular sports in the world and has an ever growing fan base in India for Women’s tennis. We are glad to have the opportunity to broadcast India’s BJK Cup playoffs which will add to our list of interesting tennis line up. I am sure with stars like Sania Mirza and Ankita Raina in the mix it will be two days of hard-fought and exciting tennis action for our passionate viewers.”
The BJK Cup is an addition to the already existing line up of tennis properties of Eurosport which includes the Australian Open, The Championships, Wimbledon, Roland-Garrosand US Open Grand Slam events across Europe* as well as the ATP Tour in 11 countries across Europe.*