THE United States of America (USA) have extended their dominance on the Fed Cup titles leaderboard with a 19th title in our simulated fantasy tennis competition. The top two sides over the years reached the final, with the USA winning 18 previous titles, and the Czech Republic second overall with 11. It has been a decade of dominance for the Czechs with six titles in nine years, while the United States won its second title in three years, but only third since the turn of the century.

USA (2) defeated CZECH REPUBLIC (0)

In what was a thrilling couple of matches in the final, Australian Open winners, Sofia Kenin and Serena Williams both got up in their respective clashes against Karolina Pliskova and Petra Kvitova. The quartet were ranked inside the top 12 players in the world, evident why the nations reached the Fed Cup final.

In the opening match of the day, Kenin had to overcome a minor slump after leading 5-2 before Pliskova levelled at 5-5 and eventually headed into a tiebreaker. There, the most recent Grand Slam winner took it out 7-4 to take the opening set in the final. She started much stronger in the second set, racing to a 5-1 lead, before once again the world number two hit back. Pliskova got back to 4-5 down, before Kenin held her nerve to serve out the match and win 7-6 6-4 in an hour and 40 minutes.

Williams came into the Fed Cup final not even coming close to dropping a set in her matches, but it was evident from early on that this was going to be her toughest challenge. Williams won the first two games of the match, before her Czech opponent strung three together. Williams bounced back with three of her own – breaking back and now leading 5-3 with a break in hand. Both players held serve in the final two games which allowed Williams to take out the set 6-4. After winning four of the first six games in the second set, the American champion looked certain to win in straight sets, but Kvitova had other ideas. The left hander cleverly won four consecutive games – breaking Williams twice and finishing the set full of confidence to level the match at one apiece. The third set belonged to Williams early as the world number nine won five of the first six games to go 5-1 up in just over half an hour. Kvitova was not going away without a fight however, winning the next three games to get it back to 4-5. But once again Williams stepped up when needed, holding her nerve and her serve to take out the match 6-4 4-6 6-4.

It meant the United States were back on top of the world and claiming the Fed Cup title. Kenin and Williams had done the bulk of the damage through singles with Alison Riske not required and Bethanie Mattek-Sands only playing the one doubles.