Katharina Kruger described Germany’s victory over France as a ‘miracle’ after the German women’s team earned a remarkable 2-1 win over the third seeds in a deciding match tie-break on Tuesday’s second day of the BNP Paribas World Team Cup Qualification in Vilamoura, Portugal.

Due to the pandemic Kruger had never even met teammate Britta Wend in person until she arrived in Vilamoura for this week’s event. However, they firmly cemented what started as WhatsApp relationship after earning a 1-6 6-4 (10-8) victory over French duo Pauline Deroulede and Charlotte Fairbank to book a semi-final berth and guarantee Germany a place in the women’s draw for the World Team Cup Finals in Sardinia in October.

“That is literally the first doubles that we’ve played together, so basically both us didn’t have a clue what the other was going to do,” said a jubilant Kruger, at 31 a comparative World Team Cup veteran having first represented Germany in the junior event at the ITF’s flagship wheelchair tennis team event more than 15 years ago.

“With people who play a lot with someone, they basically know by heart what the other one is going to do and that wasn’t the case for us. So that made the first set a little bit hard but then we managed to relax and just enjoy it. We had no pressure, for us anything could have happened and now the miracle happened. I’m so happy and excited and also happy for Britta to have such a big success in her second ever tournament.

“I actually only met her in person here this week. Before that we had WhatsApp contact, so it felt like we’ve known each other for longer than that. But we met each other in person here for the first time.”

The magnitude of the German duo’s achievement also stems from the fact that 25-year-old Wend played her first ever international tournament only last week at the Vilamoura Open, where she reached the women’s singles second round. A former handball player who was injured in January 2019 during a gymnastics session that formed part of her university sports management studies, she took up wheelchair tennis in October 2019.

Wend’s relative inexperience showed in the opening singles match of Germany’s quarter-final tie against France and she lost out to Vilamoura Open champion Deroulede 6-0, 6-1. However, Kruger forced the deciding doubles match after beating French No.1 Emmanuelle Morch 6-2 6-3.

As the doubles reached the crucial match tie-break the consistency displayed by the German pairing proved key as Deroulede and Fairbank’s error count steadily increased. Although they saved three match points, their defences could not stop a forehand from Kruger after the more experienced player called to Wend to leave the approaching match ball before calmly slotting it away.

“Definitely it means a lot to me. It’s my second tournament just now and I was so excited and happy to have Katharina by my side,” said Wend. “She is such an experienced player and has had so many years on tour and it gave me less pressure because I had her by my side. The first set, it took us time to get into it but then we found our way to do it together.

“Tennis always played a big role in my life and I kind of grew up on the tennis courts,” added Wend. “My whole family played and some still play tennis. I stopped practising regularly when I was 12 or 13, but I always played with my family. So I knew I would want to try wheelchair tennis after my accident and after my first practice I was quite sure I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

With Wend having only played one regular tour event before this week and therefore without a ranking, Germany are unseeded among the women’s teams playing in Vilamoura. They face second seeds Brazil next after Meirycoll Duval and Maria Alves beat Bulgaria’s Zoya Chadrova and Maria Petrova for the loss of just one game in their respective singles matches.

All four semi-finalists in the women’s draw in Vilamoura are guaranteed to qualify for the World Team Cup Finals in Sardinia. Top seeds Russia will face fourth seeds Turkey in the last four after Russia’s Ludmila Bubnova and Viktoriia Lvova, three-time winners of the European Qualification event, beat Kenya 3-0 after securing five of the six sets played without dropping a game.

Turkey had a much tougher time before Busra Un and Aysegul Zararsiz came from a set down to win their deciding doubles contest against Mexico’s Claudia Taboada and Rosalba Vasquez 3-6, 6-2, (10-2).

Netherlands quads justify top seeding to earn qualification

With the winners of both groups in the quad event in Vilamoura earning qualification for the World Team Cup Finals, top seeds the Netherlands lived up to their billing as US Open champion Sam Schroder and world No.6 Niels Vink dropped just five games between them to beat Turkey, their only group opponents.

Vink defeated Fatih Karatas 6-2 6-0 and Schroder proved equally clinical to beat Ugur Altinel 6-0 6-3, setting the Netherlands up for a place in Thursday’s final.

Before then second seeds Brazil face Sweden on Wednesday, when the winners of their group and the Netherlands’ next opponents will be decided. Brazil go into the tie on the back of Monday’s 2-1 victory over Germany after a deciding doubles match. Meanwhile, it was Germany’s turn to get the better of a doubles decider as the last match on the second day’s play finished under floodlights at 9.30pm.

Germany’s Marcus Laudan and Sweden’s Anders Hard had earlier won one-sided singles matches against Peter Edstrom and Nick Nobbe, respectively, but Sweden’s efforts in coming from 4-1 down in the second set of the doubles ultimately proved to no avail as Laudan and Nobbe closed out a 6-4 6-4 victory for Germany.

Men's seeds ease through to semis

While Germany’s women have booked their qualification for Sardinia, Germany’s men remain on track to join them at the World Team Cup Finals after Anthony Dittmar and Sven Hiller beat Kenya’s Collins Lumumba and Rajab Athman for the loss of just one game in each of their two singles matches.

Both sets of finalists in the two men’s knockout draws will qualify for Sardinia, with second seeds Austria set to be Germany’s next opponents in their group.

Australia dropped just one game in their opening tie of the week against Belarus and Australia’s Martyn Dunn and Ben Weekes will next face second seeds Chile, winners of their opening tie in Group 2 on Monday’s first day of play.

Sri Lanka’s Gamini Dissanayake and Suresh Dharmasena dropped just two games apiece in their singles matches against Croatia’s Sven Maretic and Anto Joskic and go on to play top seeds Israel.

In the same group as Israel and Sri Lanka, three-time European Qualification champions and sixth seeds Greece will bid to upset third seeds Poland next after Georgios Lazaridis and Stefanos Diamantis beat Tanzania’s Novatus Temba and Juma Hamisi 3-0 for the loss of just four games.