Wednesday’s big wins set up Pool Stage shootouts

Malta, Ireland and Bosnia & Herzegovina were among the nations to post convincing victories on day two of the Billie Jean King Cup by BNP Paribas Europe/Africa Group III event, teeing up a tense final day with many of the six pools featuring winner-takes-all clashes to reach the play-off round.

Ireland maintained their impressive start in Vilnius with a second 3-0 win in Pool D, this time over Iceland. Celine Simunyu and Anna Bowtell raced to singles victories for the combined loss of five games before Sophia Derivan and Shauna Heffernan wrapped up a 6-0 6-1 win in the doubles.

'It's been a good couple of days, and it's also been great to be here at the Billie Jean King Cup competing again, because it's been such a long time since we've been travelling as a team,' said Ireland captain John McGahon. 'Both Shauna Heffernan and Celina Simunyu have made their debuts as well, which is a special occasion.'

Ireland face Armenia, who have also posted back-to-back 3-0 victories in their first two ties, defeating Ghana on Wednesday.

'It's going to be a tough match,' McGahon admitted. 'We've prepared well, the team are fit and healthy, and looking very much forward to the next match. We know we're going to have to perform well to come through the group.'

Having opened with a 3-0 win over Kenya, Malta beat Zimbabwe 2-1 to join Algeria at the top of Pool E, the Africans having posted the same tie scorelines in their two matches before the teams meet on Thursday.

South Africa will head into their decisive clash with Montenegro with a slender advantage after posting another 3-0 win, this time over Azerbaijan. Thursday's opponents have it all to do after their 2-1 win over Namibia, Carita Moolman and Liniques Theron's 6-2 1-6 7-6(1) doubles win over Petra Mirkovic and Divna Ratkovic not only restoring some pride but potentially proving crucial in the final Pool F standings.

Bosnia & Herzegovina opened their promotion campaign by matching Cyprus' 3-0 win over Rwanda in Pool B - the nations will face off on Thursday for one of the six play-off berths.

'Every match, before the match, it's not easy - you have to prepare seriously,' Kenan Malicbegovic, the Bosnia & Herzegovina captain, said. 'In the end, looking at the result, it was easy, but we prepared very seriously.'

Turning his attention to Cyprus, he added: 'I will not predict the result but I'm sure they will be three very good matches. We have a Plan A and Plan B for that match - Cyprus is a very good team so we need to prepare. The good thing today is that we didn't have some tough matches, so we could save some energy.'

It's a similar story in Pool A, where Norway and North Macedonia will face off after both sides beat Albania. But there's still all to play for in Pool C, where Nigeria must hope for a serious change in fortunes for Kosovo, who they beat 3-0 on Wednesday. A single match win for hosts Lithuania against the Kosovans on Thursday will see them through to the play-offs, but a 3-0 defeat would leave all three teams tied for match wins.

Click here to see all the results from Europe/Africa Group III

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.