Emma Raducanu and Katie Boulter in Britain’s strongest Billie Jean King Cup team
Emma Raducanu and Katie Boulter will be team-mates for the first time when Great Britain go to Le Portel next month for their Billie Jean King Cup qualifying match against France.
These are the two leading players of their generation – even if Raducanu’s ranking remains stuck in the low 200s following last year’s seven-month injury lay-off – and they should have a chance of reversing last year’s 3-1 loss to the same opponents in Coventry.
France stand sixth on the BJK Cup rankings ladder, nine places ahead of Great Britain, but this is arguably the strongest team that captain Anne Keothavong has ever fielded. While the line-up is completed by Harriet Dart and Heather Watson, it seems unlikely that either woman would be selected for singles, assuming everyone reports fit.
Raducanu’s decision to participate will also help her cause when it comes to qualifying for the upcoming Olympic tennis event, because the entry rules stipulate two appearances in national team events during the four-year (or, in this case, three-year) cycle.
Her only previous outing in the Billie Jean King Cup came against the Czech Republic two years ago, when she overcame Tereza Martincova on her Great Britain debut but was then heavily defeated by future Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in a match that saw her restricted by a blister on her foot.
By playing against France next month, Raducanu will meet one of the entry criteria for Paris in July. Yet more hurdles remain. She will either need to score enough victories to be ranked inside the world’s top 56 by June 10 – which marks the end of the clay-court season – or to receive one of the two special spots reserved for former gold medallists or grand-slam champions.
Boulter – whose career-best run of form places her among the 20 leading performers of 2024 so far – will be the British No1. She will most likely come up against Caroline Garcia again, just as she did in last year’s match in Coventry, where their 3hr 26min epic – which included tie-breaks in all three sets – fell narrowly in Garcia’s favour and set the platform for France’s eventual win.
Le Portel is a small town (population 9,000) situated on the north-eastern coast of France, some 40 minutes’ drive from Calais. The Le Chaudron arena, which normally hosts the ESSM Le Portel basketball team, has a capacity of 3,400 seats and will be equipped with an indoor clay court.
One reason why Raducanu felt the tie would fit neatly in her schedule is that she will go on to play in the Porsche Open in Stuttgart the following week, which is also staged on indoor clay. “If she [Keothavong] asks me to [play], I think it makes sense because it’s before Stuttgart,” she said earlier this month.
France’s home advantage is evident in their choice of surface, which is likely to be a challenge for the visitors. Few British players spend much time on clay in their development phase, while the French tend to grow up on the stuff.
