With the highest-ranked top two singles players in the competition, Kazakhstan looms as a stern test for Australia as Billie Jean King Cup action begins at Pat Rafter Arena.
Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 9 April 2025 | Matt Trollope
*Updated 11.15am to include team selections
Australia begins its Billie Jean King Cup Qualifiers campaign today in Brisbane against Kazakhstan, in what shapes as the toughest test to pass in order to reach the Finals.
It’s the first of three ties over the next three days at Pat Rafter Arena, with Kazakhstan playing Colombia on Friday before Australia faces Colombia on Saturday.
The best-performed of the three countries will clinch its spot in the eight-nation Finals later this year in Shenzhen, China.
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OFFICIAL PROGRAM: Billie Jean King Cup Qualifiers (AUS-COL-KAZ)
Captain Sam Stosur has nominated Australia’s top two players Kimberly Birrell and Maya Joint to represent the hosts in singles, with Ellen Perez and Storm Hunter forming the doubles combination.
Joint will make her Billie Jean King Cup debut in the first singles rubber against Yulia Putintseva, before Birrell battles 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina.
Billie Jean King Cup Qualifiers: Australia v Kazakhstan
| Maya Joint (AUS) | v | Yulia Putintseva (KAZ) |
| Kimberly Birrell (AUS) | v | Elena Rybakina (KAZ) |
| Storm Hunter/Ellen Perez (AUS) | v | Anna Danilina/Zhibek Kulambayeva (KAZ) |
Stosur has long identified Kazakhstan as the No.1 team “on paper” and this is confirmed in the rankings. Of the 18 nations competing in this week’s Qualifiers stage of the Billie Jean King Cup, just two – Kazakhstan and Ukraine – have two top-25 singles players.
And when you add Rybakina’s ranking of 10th to Putintseva’s 23, it’s the highest combined singles ranking of any country competing this week.
“You’ve got to take it match by match. I know we say that a lot in tennis, but it really is true,” Stosur said.
“You’ve still got to be united as a team, and this team does get behind each other no matter what, and you create enormous upsets in this competition as we’ve seen over many years.
“[It’s a] tough ask, it’s not easy, but playing the World Cup of Tennis shouldn’t be easy and you should have to fight for it and put your best players on the court.”
TIE INFORMATION: Australia – Colombia – Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan’s squad this week is headlined by former world No.3 Rybakina and the experienced Putintseva, who cracked the top 20 for the first time earlier this year.
But Australia currently boasts three top-100 singles players in its squad – Birrell, Joint and Ajla Tomljanovic have all entered this bracket in a brilliant start to 2025 – as well as two of the world’s best doubles players in Perez and Hunter.
Perez was aware of the threat Kazakhstan posed on the doubles court, too.
“They’ve got obviously Elena who’s a really good singles player and has done very well on the doubles court too when she does play, and they do have an experienced doubles player on the team also [in Anna Danilina]. And I’ve played Yulia three times this year,” said Perez, prior to Kazakhstan nominating Danilina and Zhibek Kulambayeva as their doubles duo.
“I’ve played a lot of their different partnerships, but they could mix it up anyway, and either side of the court. I think it’s just one of those ones we just take what we get given.
“But we feel confident we could get the job done.”
The last time Australia played Kazakhstan, the green-and-gold scored an exciting 2-1 victory in the 2023 Finals in Seville – in what was previous captain Alicia Molik’s last tie at the helm.
AUS v KAZ Flashback: Hunter’s heroics lead to spirited triumph
Hunter was the star, winning both her singles match, and doubles with Perez – over Danilina and Putintseva – to complete the upset.
She sees parallels between that occasion and the tie about to unfold this week in Brisbane 18 months later.
“It’s funny because both ties are different but similar in the sense of like I’ve had a lot of things happening in the background,” said Hunter, who is returning to the competition for the first time in a year after an Achillies rupture.
“And in a way when you step out on the court, you’ve got to forget about those things and just compete.”
Australia takes on Kazakhstan from 12pm at Pat Rafter Arena on Thursday 10 April. Watch the action on 9Gem and 9Now and follow along on Tennis Australia’s social media channels.
