France Defeats Australia to Win the Fed Cup

Tomljanovic, 26, struggled to consistently land her first serve, but Parmentier, ranked No. 122, could not make her pay,

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In Sunday’s opening singles match, Mladenovic stunned Barty with a nerve-wrenching 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (1) victory.

The No. 40-ranked Mladenovic started slowly before taking advantage of an error-strewn Barty, whose 15-match Fed Cup winning streak was ended in a seesaw match lasting 2 hours 31 minutes.

Barty started where she left off against Garcia, firing back-to-back aces to take the first game and then broke Mladenovic’s serve on her way to claiming the first set in 33 minutes.

But Mladenovic, the highest-ranked Frenchwoman, fought her way back into the contest and took advantage of a series of unforced errors by Barty to force a deciding set.

“She was the aggressor, took a few more chances and got the reward out there,” Barty said.

Mladenovic failed to close out the match on serve in the 10th game of the deciding set before dominating Barty in the tiebreaker to produce arguably the best singles victory of her career.

“It’s absolutely epic,” said an emotional Mladenovic after the match. “This one is special because it’s playing in the final for the country in front of an amazing, packed crowd.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/sports/tennis/fedcup-france-australia.html?emc=rss&partner=rss