Italy advanced to the Billie Jean King Cup final for the third consecutive year after its doubles pair secured a decisive victory to defeat first-time semifinalist Ukraine 2-1 on Friday.<\/p>\n
Jasmine Paolini played a starring role for the Italians, rallying to win her singles match before teaming with Sara Errani to clinch the doubles point.<\/p>\n
Kostyuk gives Ukraine the early lead<\/strong><\/p>\n World No. 26 Marta Kostyuk gave Ukraine a strong start, defeating Elisabetta Cocciaretto 6-2, 6-3. The 23-year-old Ukrainian did not face a single break point and converted four of eight chances on Cocciaretto\u2019s serve. The win improved Kostyuk\u2019s record to 3-0 against the Italian and to 10-3 overall in singles at the Billie Jean King Cup.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Paolini rallies to even the score<\/strong><\/p>\n World No. 8 Paolini responded in the second singles match, coming from a set and a break down to beat No. 13 Elina Svitolina 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.<\/p>\n Svitolina, who led their head-to-head 2-0, appeared headed for another victory after building a 6-3, 4-2 lead. But Paolini stormed back, earning her sixth win in her last seven Billie Jean King Cup matches to level the tie at 1-1. Svitolina, seeking a record-extending 19th victory for Ukraine in the competition, was left disappointed as her team\u2019s dream of reaching its first final was put on hold.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Paolini returns with Errani to seal the final berth<\/strong><\/p>\n Italy turned to its experienced doubles duo, Paolini and Sara Errani, to finish the job. They faced Kostyuk and Lyudmyla Kichenok, breaking early for a 3-0 lead before closing out the first set 6-2.<\/p>\n Although the Ukrainians jumped ahead 3-1 in the second set, the Italians reeled off five straight games to complete a 6-2, 6-2 victory and book their spot in Sunday\u2019s final. The win underlined Paolini’s histrionics in the competition for the second year running. The 29-year-old had come also come from behind in her singles match against Wang Xinyu earlier in the week to help the Italians move into the last four.\u00a0<\/p>\n U.S., Britain prepare for semifinal showdown<\/strong><\/p>\n In the other semifinal on Saturday, 19-time champion United States will meet Great Britain, which is seeking its first Billie Jean King Cup title.<\/p>\n The Americans advanced with a 2-1 win over Kazakhstan, clinched by Jessica Pegula and Taylor Townsend in doubles. Britain moved through after Sonay Kartal and Katie Boulter won singles matches in straight sets against Japan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy advanced to the Billie Jean King Cup final for the third consecutive year after its doubles pair…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":239864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[62,1464,4063,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-239863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115233097338455122","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}