Serena Williams to lead US Fed Cup team against Ukraine

Tennis star Serena Williams. PHOTO/CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images

Former world number one Serena Williams will lead a US Fed Cup team against Ukraine next week, team captain Mary Joe Fernandez said on Wednesday.

Williams, the 13–time Grand Slam champion will be joined by Christina McHale, Sloane Stephens and Liezel Huber for the April 21-22 competition in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

The winner in the best–of–five match will advance to the 2013 Fed Cup main group and have a chance to play for the title. The loser will be relegated to World Group II.

In the men’s Davis Cup, Australia will travel to Germany in September in an attempt to move back into the 16-team World Group for the first time since 2007.

The 28–time winners will have history on their side; the previous time Australia faced Germany in Davis Cup, now–captain Patrick Rafter partnered Mark Woodforde in doubles to give Australia an unbeatable 3-0 lead in a quarter–final in Adelaide.

The draw for the Sept 14-16 playoffs was made on Wednesday in London. Australia advanced to their fifth World Group playoff in six years by completing a 5-0 sweep of South Korea last weekend in the Asia Oceania zone.

In other World Group playoffs on the same weekend, Kazakhstan will host Uzbekistan, Israel travel to Japan, Belgium host Sweden, Canada play in South Africa, Brazil host Russia, Italy play at home to Chile and Switzerland travel to Holland.

The World Group playoffs are made up of the eight losing countries from the World Group first round this year, plus the eight second–round winners from zonal competitions.

Source: Agencies