Kazakhstan have placed Australia on the brink of Billie Jean King Cup elimination with a 2-1 victory in their qualifying tie in Brisbane.
Big-hitting former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina out-gunned Kim Birrell to secure victory for Kazakhstan before the hosts picked up a precious point with success in the not-so-dead-rubber doubles.
Rybakina recovered from a double break of serve down in the second set to beat Birrell 6-3 7-6 (4) to give the Kazakhs an unassailable 2-0 lead after world No 23 Yulia Putintseva defeated rookie teenager Maya Joint 6-2 6-1 in Thursday’s opening singles match.
A 6-3 6-4 win for Storm Hunter and Ellen Perez over Anna Danilina and Zhibek Kulambayeva kept Australia’s hopes of scraping into this year’s eight-team finals in China flickering.
Australia, Kazakhstan and Colombia feature in the three-team, three-day play-off at Pat Rafter Arena, with only the group winners progressing to the quarter-finals in Shenzhen, most likely in November.
Runners-up in 2019 and 2022, Australia haven’t missed the quarter-finals since 2018. Sam Stosur’s fourth seeds are now relying on Colombia upsetting Kazakhstan on Friday so that Australia will enter Saturday’s tussle with the South Americans with a mathematical chance of topping Group D.
But skipper Stosur’s faith in Joint, then Birrell’s loss have left Australia in a hole. Stosur overlooked veteran three-time grand slam quarter-finalist Ajla Tomljanovic to hand the 18-year-old her Cup debut on Thursday.
But, despite having opportunities in a tight encounter that belied the one-sided scoreline, Joint succumbed in straight sets to leave Australia trailing 1-0 in the best-of-three-match tie.
The defeat left Birrell needing to upset the 10th-ranked Rybakina to force a deciding doubles rubber.
But Birrell couldn’t muster a boilover, letting a 5-1 lead slip in the second set against the 2022 Wimbledon champion and 2023 Australian Open runner-up.
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Ranked 78th in the world, one spot above Tomljanovic, Joint always had her work cut out against the more experienced and accomplished Putintseva.
But after serving as Australia’s “orange girl” in last year’s finals in Malaga, the US-born talent was backed to step up against Putintseva, and did so early on.
Alas, Joint dropped five games straight to concede the first set and fall an early break behind in the second after losing 10 of 11 deuce points.
The turning point came when Joint failed to convert a break-back point in the second game of the second set as Putintseva, a triple grand slam quarter-finalist herself, applied the pressure to run away with the match.
