After a day’s training at the DLTA Complex, the assembled players of the Indian team went back home after the International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced on twitter that the Fed Cup Asia-Oceania group-1 women’s event, scheduled at Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan, from February 4 to 8, had been postponed.
“The ITF is working with the six competing nations, China, India, Korea, Chinese Taipei, Uzbekistan and Indonesia to reschedule. Further details will be announced shortly,” the ITF stated in another tweet.
Indian team captain Vishaal Uppal said Rutuja Bhosale and Sowjanya Bavisetti were flying back to their home.
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“We should be hearing from the ITF in another day or so about the new dates and venue,” said the captain.
The six-team round-robin competition, from which two teams will qualify for the World Group-2 play-off, was originally scheduled at Dongguan, China. It was shifted to Kazakhstan because travelling to China was hard for everyone owing to the emergency situation following the outbreak of the coronavirus.
The delay could be a blessing in disguise for the Indian team as Sania Mirza, returning to the professional circuit after more than two years, would get some more time to recover from the calf injury.
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Sania won her first tournament on return in Hobart, but retired midway through the Australian Open first round with Nadiia Kichenok of Ukraine to avoid aggravating the calf injury.