Swiss beaten by Czechs in BJK Finals opener, Slovenia beat Australia

The finalists of last year's Billie Jean King Cup Finals, Switzerland and Australia, both suffered defeats in their opening matches on Tuesday.

Eleven-time winners Czech Republic beat Switzerland 3-0 in Group A, when Linda Noskova established the lead for her side, recovering from a 4-1 deficit in the third set to outclass fellow teenager Celine Naef 7-6(2), 4-6 , 6-4. Marie Bouzkova then extended the lead with a 6-4, 6-4 win against Viktorija Golubicin, which secured their win over the Swiss team in a best-of-three tie. Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova rounded off the 3-0 win in the doubles contention against Golubic and Jil Teichmann 7-6, 6-2. Meanwhile, the Czech team rested Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova who had just finished her campaign at the WTA Finals in Cancun.

Earlier in the day, Slovenia opened their campaign at the Billie Jean King Cup with a 2-1 win against last year's runners-up Australia.

Kaja Juvan won 6-4, 6-1 against Ajla Tomljanovic, and Tamara Zidansek defeated Daria Saville to put Slovenia 2-0 ahead.

The Slovenian singles players capitalized on the rankings of Tomljanovic and Saville, who are 549th and 206th in the world respectively, while Juvan was a semifinalist at the 2021 French Open, and Zidansek arrived in Spain in great form after six wins in her last eight matches at the event.

Though the result of the doubles match was rendered irrelevant, the Australians still rallied to a victory from Kimberly Birrell and Storm Hunter over Veronika Erjavec and debutant Ela Milic 7-5, 6-7(7), 10-5.

On Thursday, hosts Spain will play against Canada, while France will face Italy.

(With input from Xinhua)