{"id":163482,"date":"2025-09-17T16:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T16:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/163482\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T16:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T16:02:08","slug":"emma-raducanus-billie-jean-king-cup-finals-decision-disappointing-says-captain-anne-keothavong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/163482\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu\u2019s Billie Jean King Cup Finals decision \u2018disappointing\u2019, says captain Anne Keothavong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Your support helps us to tell the story<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 jEZjIj\">From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it&#8217;s investigating the financials of Elon Musk&#8217;s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, &#8216;The A Word&#8217;, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 jEZjIj\">At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-1uza6dc-0 jEZjIj\">The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n<p>Your support makes all the difference.Read more<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/emma-raducanu\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Emma Raducanu<\/a>\u2019s decision to skip the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/billie-jean-king-cup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Billie Jean King Cup<\/a> Finals in order to play in a WTA tournament is \u201cobviously disappointing\u201d, Great Britain\u2019s captain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/anne-keothavong\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anne Keothavong<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n<p>Great Britain will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/sport\/tennis\/billie-jean-king-cup-schedule-teams-tv-b2826684.html\" title=\"Billie Jean King Cup Finals schedule, teams and how to watch on TV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">play Japan in the quarter-finals on Thursday<\/a> but will do without their No 1 ranked player, with Raducanu instead <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/sport\/tennis\/emma-raducanu-billie-jean-king-cup-great-britain-b2826937.html\" title=\"Emma Raducanu\u2019s Billie Jean King Cup Finals decision places spotlight on season goal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">accepting a wildcard to play in the Korea Open <\/a>in Seoul. <\/p>\n<p>Raducanu, who won all three of her matches in last year\u2019s Finals as Great Britain reached the semi-finals, has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/sport\/tennis\/emma-raducanu-rain-delay-korean-open-jaqueline-cristian-b2828315.html\" title=\"Emma Raducanu beats the rain to finally kickstart Korea Open\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">set up a second-round meeting with Barbora Krejcikova <\/a>on Thursday. <\/p>\n<p>The 22-year-old is defending quarter-final points in Seoul and has set her sights on improving her ranking over the final months of the season to earn a seeded spot at the Australian Open. <\/p>\n<p>Keothavong said the Great Britain team, which consists of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/katie-boulter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Katie Boulter<\/a>, Sonay Kartal, Jodie Burrage and Fran Jones, have a \u201creal shot\u201d at winning the title as she responded to Raducanu\u2019s decision. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s obviously disappointing, but I do want the main focus to be on the players I have and the challenge we have ahead,&#8221; Keothavong said on the eve of Great Britain\u2019s tie against Japan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I believe in the players that I&#8217;ve got. How the team were able to perform in April to get us into this position was fantastic, and I see no reason why we can&#8217;t do the same.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Players will make decisions they feel is in their best interest, but my focus is just on this team. We take a huge amount of pride in this competition and we do want to be world champions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SEI266480915.jpeg\"  loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Keothavong said Britain have a 'real shot'\" class=\"sc-1mc30lb-0 ggpMaE inline-gallery-btn\"\/><\/p>\n<p>open image in gallery<\/p>\n<p>Keothavong said Britain have a &#8216;real shot&#8217; (Bradley Collyer\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n<p>Great Britain will take on a Japan team who are without their No 1 ranked player in Naomi Osaka. Keothavong\u2019s side qualified ahead of Germany and the Netherlands in February, with Boulter and Kartal delivering after Raducanu skipped those matches for a training block. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we&#8217;ve got a real shot at [winning] it,&#8221; Keothavong said. &#8220;We are the second seeds here, having reached the semi-finals twice in the past few years and come close to going further.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-163482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}