ITF

ITFWORLD WINTER 2017 17 www.itftennis.com Kathy Rinaldi, making her debut as the USA's captain this year, also secured a piece of Fed Cup history. Rinaldi became the first female Fed Cup captain from any country to lead a team to victory since Billie Jean King secured the last title for the USA in 2000. Rinaldi proved to channel the type of captain King was in her day, a motivator with the know-how to meld a team into a finely-tuned unit with a common cause. "It's been an incredible ride thanks to these ladies," Rinaldi said. "We're family and we've had each other's backs. This was a very tough match and their players were tough players." The linchpin of the USA's Fed Cup endeavour was CoCo Vandeweghe, who was very upfront all season long that bringing the Fed Cup back home to America was a top priority. Despite the evidence that she was the chief architect of the USA's victory, Vandeweghe was adamant she was just one cog in the winning effort. "It's a great honour to play alongside these girls through the whole year, and to kind of put the cherry on top, make it to the final, compete with them this coming weekend," said Vandeweghe, at the draw ceremony at the Minsk City Hall. Vandeweghe played the No. 1 position in all three ties — playing six singles and two doubles rubbers during the year. She became the first player to win eight matches in a Fed Cup season since the eight-team World Group format commenced in 2005. She is also only the third player since the home-and-away format came to Fed Cup in 1995 to win three points in a final, along with Russians Anastasia Myskina in 2004 and Elena Dementieva in 2005. CoCo Vandeweghe won all eight Fed Cup matches played in 2017 Belarusian face painting US Open champion Stephens suffered two singles losses

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