JUDY MURRAY and Elena Baltacha shed tears of joy as they embraced after Britain had secured their place in today's Fed Cup Europe/Africa Zone Group One promotion play-offs.
Unknown to them, qualif-ication had been secured 45 minutes earlier when Portugal beat the Netherlands in the other Pool C encounter. But Baltacha's 6-4, 6-3 straight-sets win over Israel's Shahar Peer which clinched victory over the home side provided a moment that summed up the unity and spirit of the British side in Eilat this week.
Under the captaincy of Murray, the British team of Baltacha, Anne Keothavong, Heather Watson and Laura Robson, ooze positive energy. From fun-filled messages on social-networking sites to vocal chants coming from the team bench, this is a group of players who have displayed a vast amount of confidence and enthusiasm all week.
There is still more work to be done on court, however. In an effort to go forward to April's World Group Two play-offs, Britain now take on Austria, who have the world No.48, Tamira Paszek, and Patricia Mayr-Achleitner, ranked 96, in their team.
Britain, though, have a better depth, as one of only two teams in Eilat to have had all four players in the main draw of the Australian Open. Paszek has also been in poor form this week, losing both her singles matches, one of theme in a straight-sets defeat to Anett Kontaveit, the world No.588 from Estonia.
Murray was delighted with the way her team beat the hosts in front of a passionate and at times intimidating local support. Keothavong was the clear favourite in the first match, against her lower-ranked opponent, Julia Glushko, but the 28-year-old was impressive in kicking the tie off on the right note by winning 6-2, 6-1 in 67 minutes.
Baltacha then showed why Murray had referred to her as a gladiator earlier in the week, beating Peer, a former world No.11 who is now ranked 37, to claim her finest victory in British colours.
The Scot now has an overall win-loss hard-court record of 18-1 in the competition, prompting one onlooker to call her the "Colin Montgomerie of the Fed Cup".
Watson and Robson had a run-out in last night's dead doubles rubber for some val-uable practice should they be needed today for what would be a winner-takes-all doubles match for promotion.
Murray said of the win: "Today was fantastic. We had two convincing wins in the singles, straight-sets wins for Anne first of all and then for Bally, and then the younger girls, who had a little bit of a sticky start in the doubles, came through very strongly so we didn't drop a set and it was relatively straight- forward."
Murray praised the way her players had given her a winning start. She added: "For me it was the perfect debut, but it's only the first match. We have a tough one tomorrow but we've prepared well and we'll be ready."
While the signs are good for the Fed Cup team, the British Davis Cup team, who take on Slovakia Republic at Braehead Arena in Glasgow next week, will be wary of the news that the Slovak No.1, Lukas Lacko, is showing ominous signs of form by reaching his first ATP semi-final.
The 24-year-old beating Robin Haase, the No.7 seed from the Netherlands, 6-4, 6-4 at the ATP PBZ Zagreb Indoors yesterday.
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