SHENZHEN, China (AP) \u2014 Jasmine Paolini beat Jessica Pegula on the fourth match point as defending champion Italy won the Billie Jean King Cup with a comprehensive victory over the United States on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Italy won both singles ties in straight sets, meaning there was no need for a decisive doubles match. The No. 8-ranked Paolini beat seventh-ranked Pegula 6-4, 6-2 after No. 91 Elisabetta Cocciaretto won 6-4, 6-4 against Emma Navarro, breaking her serve three times.<\/p>\n
Paolini broke Pegula\u2019s serve with a two-hand backhand down the line to take the first set and move Italy closer to success at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Center Arena in China.<\/p>\n
But with Paolini serving for the match at 5-1 she wavered a little. Pegula saved three match points and then two unforced errors from Paolini allowed Pegula to break back to 5-2 down.<\/p>\n
A strong looping forehand gave Paolini \u2014 the runner-up at the French Open and Wimbledon last year \u2014 a fourth match point and she took it, clinching victory when Pegula\u2019s two-handed backhand clipped the net and landed wide.<\/p>\n
Paolini raised her arms in the air, then walked over to hug her teammates. All the staff members joined them on the court as they danced in a circle before celebrating with blue-shirted, flag-waving Italy fans.<\/p>\n
Pegula and Navarro each came from a set down to defeat Britain and reach the final. <\/p>\n
But not this time.<\/p>\n
Italy boasted a doubles pairing of Olympic champions Paolini and Sara Errani, who also won the French Open doubles together this year. They would have faced Pegula and top-ranked doubles player Taylor Townsend in what might have been an exciting trophy decider.<\/p>\n
The BJK Cup was formerly known as the Fed Cup, and the United States is the most successful team as an 18-time winner, but not since 2017.<\/p>\n
Italy was contesting its third straight final and clinched its sixth title. The Americans\u2019 previous final came in 2018.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SHENZHEN, China (AP) \u2014 Jasmine Paolini beat Jessica Pegula on the fourth match point as defending champion Italy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-159346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}