France and Colombia are tied at one win after the first two singles of the BJK Cup play-off on Saturday near Bogota, but Diane Parry, who won her match, injured her knee and is doubtful for the matches in Sunday.
The French number 1, 50th in the world, was heading towards an easy victory against Emiliana Arango (180th) after easily winning the first round (6-2), once a short period of adjustment had passed and the first two games lost. But in the first game of the second round, she collapsed on the clay court of Sopo, in the suburbs of the Colombian capital, at an altitude of 2,600 meters. Holding his left knee after regaining support on a high ball, a long doubt hovered over the seriousness of his injury. The French team doctor strapped her up and she finally returned to the game, visibly diminished.
“It doesn’t seem too serious.”
Faced with a limited Colombian, constantly on the defensive, Diane Parry seemed to have done the hard part by relying on the alternation and her accelerations to lead 4 to 2. But suffering, she let her opponent come back, then had to hard to defend his throw to lead 5-4, and finally close the game on his first match point. “I was afraid for my knee and am happy to have been able to finish the match and offer this point. Now we have to see exactly what I have, fortunately it doesn't seem too serious”she said. However, she is uncertain to face the Colombian No.1 on Sunday, Camila Osorio, 63rd in the world, who tied the two teams by dominating Clara Burel (74th) 6-4, 7-5.
In a match of a completely different intensity between two offensive players, the Frenchwoman quickly broke to lead 3-1, then 4-2, while showing solidity on her first ball. But her service went haywire (7 double faults) and she conceded four consecutive games to lose on the fourth set point against her (6-4). Again in the second set, where Clara Burel took her opponent's service twice to lead 4-1, before being pulled back to four games all. She broke again to serve for the set but failed to conclude. Unlike Camilia Osorio who did not let the opportunity pass on her first match point (7-5).
Sunday from 11 a.m. local (5 p.m. in France), if Diane Parry is not withdrawn she will face Camila Osorio, before the Burel-Arango duel. And if necessary, in the event of a tie on points at the end of the four singles, the decisive doubles will pit the French pair of Varvara Gracheva and Chloé Paquet against the Colombians Yuliana Lizarazo and Maria Paulina Perez.
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The winner of this play-off will play in the elite of the BJK Cup in 2025, while the losers will play in the lower division of the former Fed Cup.
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