Iga Swiatek, Jasmine Paolini, Danielle Collins, Paula Badosa and Leylah Fernandez will highlight the 2024 edition of the Billie Jean King Cup Finals from 13 to 20 November 2024. The tournament will be held at the Palacio de Deportes José Maria Martin Carpena in Malaga and will overlap with the men’s Davis Cup Finals to create a world-class fortnight of international team tennis.
Leylah Fernandez will lead reigning Billie Jean King champions Canada. World number 4 and two-time Grand Slam finalist Jasmine Paolini will lead 2023 runners-up Italy.
The twelve teams will take part in a knock-out competition for the right to be crowned tennis world champions. Four ties will be held in round one from Wednesday 13 to Friday 15. The quarter finals are scheduled on 16 and 17 November and will be followed by the semifinals on 18-19 November and the final on 20 November.
The players to watch:
Iga Swiatek (Poland):
Iga Swiatek will play in the Billie Jean King Cup for the first time in her career. The Polish star has won five Grand Slam titles and 17 further WTA titles in her career.
Swiatek is working with her new coach Wim Fissette after parting ways with her long-time coach Tomasz Wiktorowski. She is now world number 2 in the WTA Ranking behind Aryna Sabalenka after 122 weeks at the top of the rankings over the last three weeks.
Iga Swiatek: “I am just going to enjoy playing for my country and being with the teammates and the girls, being as one team. It’s going to be tough. We will do our best to win”
Jasmine Paolini (Italy):
Jasmine Paolini is looking to end a dream 2024 season on a high note by leading Italy to the Billie Jean Cup title one year after the Italian team finished runner-up to Canada in the 2023 edition.
Paolini started the year ranked world number 29. Before this season the Italian star had never got past the second round of a Grand Slam tournament. She reached two consecutive Grand Slam Finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon and the fourth round at the Australian Open and at the US Open. She also won her first WTA 1000 title in Dubai and reached the top 10 of the WTA Ranking for the first time in her career. Last August she won the Olympic doubles gold medal alongside her friend Sara Errani. The Italian Billie Jean King Cup team captained by Tathiana Garbin is aiming to follow in the footsteps of the men’s Italian team, who won the Davis Cup Finals in 2023.
Paolini was born in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana in Tuscany. Her father Ugo is Italian. Her mother Jacqueline is of Polish and Ghanaian origin. Her maternal grandmother lives in Lodz (Poland). Her brother William also plays tennis. Jasmine was introduced to tennis by her father Ugo at the age of five. She moved to Tirrenia for training at the age of 15.
“I started to play tennis at the age of five and I fell love with the sport. It has been a long journey. I was not dreaming too much at the start. I was just enjoying playing tennis. I have now reached two Grand Slam finals. Now we are in Grand Slam finals and it’s hard to believe. I step on court believing that I can win every match. That makes all the difference from where I was before. Now things are a little different for me. I have a little more attention on myself, but I am trying to enjoy, to live the present, to enjoy the moment because it’s nice in this position. It’s nice to play great matches against top players”, said Jasmine Paolini.
Errani and Paolini did not get through to the knock-out stage at the WTA Finals in Ryadh with back-to-back losses after holding match points. Errani has won the Billie Jean King Cup three times in 2009, 2010 and 2013.
Sara Errani: “We need maybe some days off after this loss, because it’s tough, but we will recharge the batteries and be ready for Malaga”.
Italy will have a bye in the opening round and will face either Japan or Romania in the quarter final.
Danielle Collins (USA):
Florida-born star Danielle Collins beat Elena Rybakina to win her first WTA 1000 title at the Miami Open last March and claimed the WTA 500 in Charleston on clay court a week later beating Daria Kasatkinka in the final. The US player also reached the semifinal in Rome, the final in Strasbourg and the Round of 16 at Wimbledon.
Collins made her announcement to retire at the end of the year, but she changed her decision in mid-October and confirmed that she will continue playing tennis in 2025.
“While I was very excited and eager to wrap up my tennis career on a high note this year and jump headfirst into my next chapter of life, things have not gone as planned. In addition to managing some lingering health challenges in the past few months, I have recently been seeing a handful of specialists to better understand what my best path forward is to achieve my ultimate dream, starting a family. Dealing with endrometriotis and fertility is a massive challenge for many women and something that I am traversing, but I am fully confident in the team I am working with. It is just going to take longer than I thought. The Danimal story has not reached its conclusion. I will be back on tour in 2025. While there are no guarantees in life, I hope to build on my 2024 momentum and keep playing until there is more certainty around my personal fertility journey. The only guarantee for me will be some more epic matches”, said Danielle Collins.
Taylor Townsend (USA):
Taylor Townsend won the Wimbledon doubles title and finished runner-up alongside Katerina Siniakova in the championships match at the WTA Finals in Ryadh.
Taylor Townsend: “It’s always cool, because it’s a team spirit. I never played team sports growing up. So like for me, I’ve always done so well in team environments because I’m a leader, so I really enjoy to create the atmosphere for my team and just to get everyone pumped up and fired up for the matches. I’m just looking forward honestly to representing my country, doing better than we did last year, because we played them and just having a good time”
The US team will take on Slovakia in the opening match. The winner will face Australia in the quarter final. Siniakova and Barbora Krejcikova helped Czech Republic beat the US Team with a doubles win over Townsend and Danielle Collins in the Billie Jean King Cup Finals last year.
Paula Badosa (Spain):
Paula Badosa was thinking about retiring from tennis last May. She was ranked world number 140 in the WTA Ranking after reaching a career-high world number 2 two years ago. Her doctors advised her to quit tennis due to her chronic back injury, that stopped her from playing in the second half of the season. The physical problems continued to affect her in the first half of the season. She made her turnaround last August, when she won her first title in more than two years at the Citi DC Open in Washington. The Spanish player her first Grand Slam quarter final since 2021 at the US Open last September.
“I am really proud of myself, how I overcame these tough situations and also how I finished the season. I finished the year at a very high level. I am really happy, as there was one point of the season where I was very far away from the level I wanted to be. I felt the tide turning after switching from the clay to grass last June. I started to feel myself again, playing competitively again and my level was raising match after match. In that part of the season I was starting to feel like I was coming back again. The DC Open in Washington and the US Open run felt like it was a reward for all my hard work. To come back to that level is never easy. I had to put a lot of hard work in. That felt good, especially also in Asia after, I played really well also. I finished the year where I wanted to be, back with all the best players in the world. I am looking forward to next year. I am not defending many points so it’s great to start the season like that also”, said Paula Badosa.
Leylah Fernandez (Canada):
Canada won the Billie Jean Cup for the first time in history in Seville. The Canadian team achieved their best result in 1988 when they reached the semifinals.
Leylah Fernandez, who reached the US Open final in 2021, led the Canadian team to the Billie Jean King Cup title in 2023.
Fernandez reached the quarter finals in singles at the WTA 1000 tournament with wins over Elena Rybakina (her first win over a top 5 opponent since her run to the 2021 US Open final), and Diana Shnaider. Fernandez reached the final of the doubles in Cincinnati but they lost to Asia Muhammad and Erin Routliffe in a decisive champions tie-break.
Leylah Fernandez: “We worked really well as a team in the past years and I think every year, we just keep improving. It’s showing in competitions. Now it has shown on the biggest stage in the world in the Billie Jean King Cup”, said Leylah Fernandez.
Gabriela Dabrowski (Canada):
Gabriela Dabrowski won the doubles title at the WTA Finals in Ryadh alongside New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe. The Canadian team has a bye and will face Germany or Great Britain in the quarter finals.
“It’s a lot of adrenaline. We are a team here. I feel very fortunate to be able to have this team feeling in the last few tournaments. It’s really cool and not something that I have always felt in my career. I feel grateful for that. But the clinching win that Leylah had against Paolini [in the final], that was huge, we were so happy. She played amazing, tactically it was so smart, so it was a very satisfying win”, said Dabrowski.
Linda Noskova and Katerina Siniakova (Czech Republic):
The strong Czech team also features Linda Noskova and doubles specialist Katerina Siniakova. Czechia has an opening-round bye in Malaga and will face either Spain or Poland in the quarter final.
Noskova reached the quarter final at the Australian Open and won the WTA 500 in Monterrey.
Siniakova rose to world number 1 doubles rankings after wins at Roland Garros with Coco Gauff and Wimbledon with Taylor Townsend. Siniakova won two Olympic gold medals in the mixed doubles alongside Tomas Machac and in the Olympic gold in the women’s doubles in Tokyo 2020.
Katerina Siniakova: “I am very excited. I am very happy. It’s a really long season and this is amazing that we could play the WTA Finals championships match in Ryadh and and then going to the Billie Jean King Cup. I love to represent my country I am just proud and happy”.
Last year Muchova reached the French Open final and the US Open semifinal before being sidelined by a serious wrist injury for several months.
