Pegula, Paolini, Osaka, Muchova lead BJK Cup Finals nominations

Three Top 10 players and two other Grand Slam winners are among the players who will suit up for their respective nations at November’s Billie Jean King Cup Finals.

The event will be held from Nov. 13-20 at the Palacio de Deportes Jose Maria Martin Carpena Arena in Malaga, Spain. Canada are the defending champions, and its effort for a title defense will be anchored by 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu, 2021 US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez, and recent Guadalajara semifinalist Marina Stakusic. The 12 nations that qualified by virtue of their 2023 results in the competition, or by winning a qualifying round tie in April, will compete in a knockout draw for the right to be named Billie Jean King Cup champion.

The highest-ranked player named to her country’s team is US Open finalist and World No.3 Jessica Pegula, and she’ll be joined on the U.S. team by World No.10 Danielle Collins in what will likely be the final event of her tennis career. World No.5 Jasmine Paolini, the Roland Garros and Wimbledon finalist, headlines an Italian team which was runner-up a year ago and also features her Paris Olympic gold-medal winning partner Sara Errani.

Meanwhile, Naomi Osaka and Emma Raducanu have been named for the Japanese and British teams, respectively. Four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka competed in Billie Jean King Cup for the first time in three years in Japan’s 3-1 qualifying round against Kazakhstan, and earned her first win since 2018 over Yulia Putintseva. 2021 US Open champion Raducanu also made a winning return to Billie Jean King Cup play in April, winning both of her singles matches in Great Britain’s 3-1 win over France from a set down.

Other notable names set to compete for their countries include former World No.2 Paula Badosa for Spain; two-time defending US Open semifinalist and 2023 Roland Garros finalist Karolina Muchova for the Czech Republic; recently-crowned Guadalajara Open AKRON champion Magdalena Frech for Poland; newly-minted Australian No.1 Olivia Gadecki, who cracked the Top 100 by finishing runner-up to Frech in Guadalajara; and Slovakia’s Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, who finished in fourth place at the Paris Games.

Seven of the 12 countries will be captained by former Hologic WTA Tour players, including International Tennis Hall of Famer and former World No.1 Lindsay Davenport as U.S. captain.