The Cup is now played in a week in one city: first, 12 teams hold the group stage, and then the four best are sorted out according to the Olympic system. Each meeting now has not five matches, but three – two singles and a pair.
It was originally planned that the tournament would take place in April in Budapest, but due to the pandemic, plans were thwarted. However, the BDK Cup still managed to find a place and time.
True, the time was chosen rather unusual – it takes place right before the final WTA tournament, which also moved to Guadalajara this year. Including because of this, only one top-10 tennis player made it to Prague – the leader of Czech tennis Barbora Kreichikova, who, however, at the end of the year gave up a little and lost both singles matches.
All this is a preamble to the fact that under these conditions the Russian national team arrived in Prague with the strongest line-up. 12 top 40 tennis players are playing in the Czech Republic this week, five of them for Russia.
The following matches were played: Lyudmila Samsonova beat Sloane Stevens – 1:6, 6:4, 6:3; Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova lost to Danielle Collins – 7:6, 6:7, 2:6; Lyudmila Samsonova and Veronica Kudermetova played with Shelby Rogers and Coco Vandevey – 6:3, 6:3.