Can India use home turf to make a mark?

Close on the heels of the Indian women's cricket team's watershed World Cup triumph, the Indian women's tennis team is chasing a defining moment of its own. On 14 November, India begins its quest for a place in the qualifiers of the Billie Jean King Cup for the very first time.

- Deepti Patwardhan

Placed in Group G, India will take on the Netherlands and Slovenia in the BJK Cup Playoffs at the SM Krishna Stadium in Bengaluru from 14-16 November. The three teams will face each other once with the top team advancing to the 2026 qualifiers. It is only the second time that India has reached the playoffs and the first time that it is hosting a tie of this stature.

"It's a very important stepping stone in the journey of women's tennis in India," says India's captain Vishaal Uppal, who led the team in the playoffs in 2021, when the team, featuring Sania Mirza, had come up short in an away tie in Latvia. "To get to the playoffs is no mean task. The Netherlands and Slovenia are quality teams, but we have also proven that we can punch above our weight. We will have our strategy in place on how best to tackle them."

Known as the "World Cup of tennis", the BJK Cup is the premier international women's team tennis event. What began as the Federation Cup in 1963 with 16 participants has grown into the BJK Cup, with 146 teams entered to compete this year. The tournament is split into seven tiersthe BJK Cup finals are the crown jewel, followed by qualifiers, then come playoffs and lastly the continental Groups I-IV.