TENNIS in DEPTH.

American doubles specialist Liezel Huber, who has repeatedly called on Venus and Serena Williams to play Fed Cup, was critical of the sisters’ decision not to play this weekend’s tie against Russia.

“We want this trophy and we want them to play,”  Huber said yesterday in Birmingham. “But if they don’t play, it’s very tough for me to be supportive of their decision. Come Olympics time and they want to play, they have to understand the people that are going to be loyal, I would hope, are going to go ahead of them. Because we are loyal. We want to bring the Cup home.”

The young American team has a realistic chance of winning against the usually powerful Russians. With the exception of Elena Dementieva, their team is also young and inexperienced, and Dementieva is a little rusty and can be very irratic.

If by some miracle the US does win it will be interesting to see if Mary Joe Fernandez continues to court the Williams sisters for the final tie with the defending champion Italian team, or whether she will have the guts and leadership to field the team that got the US into the final.

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