Sam Stosur's emotion was obvious as her friend and Fed Cup captain, Alicia Molik, addressed the Pat Rafter Arena crowd on Australia's second winless Fed Cup day.
Tough: Australia's Sam Stosur had another day to forget. Photo: Getty Images
Sam Stosur's emotion was obvious as her friend and Fed Cup captain, Alicia Molik, addressed the Pat Rafter Arena crowd on Australia's second winless Fed Cup day. Stosur, for the second time, had been unable to convert a first set lead into a singles point in the world group play-off against the US. Not for the first time, it was uncomfortable to watch.
Molik reminded the spectators that only a couple of points can decide a match, said she could not fault the way Stosur had rallied from a service break down in the third set to get to one botched overhead away from levelling at 5-5, and praised the way the 32-year-old had carried herself during her 29th tie.
"I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a lot riding on Sam's shoulders all the time, but the way she handles it every single time she plays for her country is something to be admired," Molik said.
And yet the hero of the first-round tie against Slovakia in Bratislava again failed to get the job done at home, this time on her favoured clay rather than the Plexicushion on which she has struggled so often before. She has won a US Open and made the finals of the French, but the Queenslander is now 4-10 on Pat Rafter Arena, including 0-4 in Fed Cup ties.
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"It's pretty obvious my record here is not that great compared to those two places, but what you can do?" said Stosur, who was up a set and a break before losing 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 to CoCo Vandeweghe, the US substitute for day one singles winner Madison Keys, having endured a car crash second set and then, in her words, "screwed up" some crucial short balls late in her upset day one loss to Christina McHale.
"Unfortunately we've now played a couple of Fed Cups here where it hasn't gone our way, but we've also played two very good teams as well. So even though you're at home stadium it doesn't mean you're going to win. You've still got to bring it. We tried our best here this week and played some pretty good tennis but unfortunately come up short."
Stosur said there was "not necessarily" any more pressure playing a match Australia needed her to win to supply oxygen to a tie the US eventually won 4-0 after Vandeweghe and Bethanie Mattek-Sands combined to beat scratch doubles pair Daria Gavrilova and Arina Rodionova 6-1, 6-4.
On Sunday, she wobbled at 5-5 in the second set – just as she had tightened up at 5-5 in the third the previous afternoon – in a game notable for a tense double-fault and a wild crosscourt forehand putaway on game point when down-the-line was open. Stosur got as angry as Stosur gets at the subsequent changeover, which is only moderately. As commentator Todd Woodbridge wondered: is that angry enough?
"We'll keep giving ourselves an opportunity to get back into the World Group I and we're going to do the same thing next year," Stosur said, reiterating her ongoing Fed Cup commitment. "We'll play in February and give it our best shot and hopefully we can be back in this position in April again playing to get back into the main stage."
The immediate focus for Stosur, who leaves for Prague on Wednesday, is the French Open, where she logged a personal best grand slam record of 29-11, including three semi-finals or better from 2009-12. "All my training and tournaments leading up to that is going to have that big picture kind of focus to Roland Garros – without putting it so high you freak yourself out," she said, her composure recovered by then.
Joy was boundless for for US team, whose captain Mary Jo Fernandez's two selection gambles – unofficial team "MVP" McHale ahead of Vandeweghe on Saturday, and the latter in place of Keys on Sunday – paid off handsomely. Molik, though, was left to lament the delay of at least one more year before another chance can come for world group re-entry.
"It's not the result we wanted and I don't think it's the result that we were really confident that we'd get," she said. "We were playing good enough, I think, to win this tie, and so it's a lost opportunity, it is, because we felt really ready to get back to the world group next year, particularly given the preparation, everyone's eagerness to get back and play a home tie. So an opportunity missed, but we need to accept that and rebound next year."
Linda Pearce's travels were assisted by the Fed Cup Foundation and Tennis Australia