Harriet Dart secures Great Britain's Billie Jean King Cup win – but has little time to celebrate

British No 3 Harriet Dart was due to leave London on a six o’clock flight on Monday morning, heading to a second-tier event in Japan. While this might seem an unappealing prospect, Dart should at least be travelling with a warm inner glow after sealing Great Britain’s victory over Sweden at London’s Olympic Park.

On Sunday afternoon, Dart had her nervy moments against little-known Caijsa Hennemann, a player who scraps and scrambles in an effort to make up for her lack of firepower. It would have been easy to tighten up under the pressure, as Jodie Burrage – the Briton who might have been expected to play this match – had done so paralysingly the day before.

Burrage was hardly the first to suffer this fate. The capacity crowd of 5,500 fans at the Copper Box Arena has the potential to work both ways, adding expectation or inspiration depending on a player’s mindset. Dart was probably somewhere in the middle. She did not bring her best stuff, but still managed to stay steady and build her way to a 7-5, 6-2 victory.

That rounded off a 3-1 win for Anne Keothavong’s team, and maintained their position in the world group of the Billie Jean King Cup. They must now await the draw for their opponents in April’s qualifying round.

“To be able to represent GB is always a huge honour,” said Dart afterwards. “But also to be able to play a tie in London is so special. I’m a Londoner [from the leafy northern suburb of Hampstead] so to be in front of all my friends and family is extra special.”

Asked about her early-morning appointment – which must have limited her post-match celebrations – Dart explained that she is still chasing the rankings points that might give her a chance of direct entry into January’s Australian Open. At No 140 in the world, she needs to climb at least 35 places before the end of the season if she is to avoid the demolition derby that is the qualifying event.

“I’m going to Asia tomorrow for three weeks,” Dart said. “I had a really tough start to the year and the last couple of months I’ve been feeling good. So I thought I would just keep pushing a little bit. Try for Australia and see what happens. And to be able to play a match today is obviously very beneficial. I think I’ll sleep well on the plane.”

Dart had won a late call-up for this match because of Burrage’s shaky form the previous day. Despite a strong individual ranking of No 94, which gave her a 278-place advantage on the ladder, Burrage lost her nerve against Sweden’s best available player Kajsa Rinaldo Persson. (Two more experienced performers – Rebecca Peterson and Mirjam Bjorklund – were unavailable for the visitors through injury.)

Boulter battles to victory

Fortunately, Keothavong held a trump card in the shape of Katie Boulter, who is enjoying the best season of her career. Having already disposed of Hennemann comfortably on Saturday, Boulter was pushed harder by Rinaldo Persson in Sunday’s opening match. In the later stages of a hard-fought contest, she needed to save four set points that would – had she lost one of them – have sent the match into a decider. 

In the end, though, Boulter kept landing enough blows with her heavy forehand to earn a 6-1, 7-6 victory and take her BJK Cup record to a healthy 11 wins from 14 outings. Her Australian boyfriend, world No 12 Alex de Minaur, was watching from the stands.

Speaking after the tie had been completed, Swedish captain Johanna Larsson identified those set points as the key moment of the day. “I would really have liked to see a third set in the first singles,” she said. “It would have been interesting to see how Katie would deal with that situation. But I think you [Great Britain] were just a bit stronger on the important moments.”

While Dart tries her luck on the second-tier ITF circuit, Boulter says that she will be heading back to the gym. The key to her progress this year, which carried her from No 124 on Jan 1 to No 58 now, has been that she maintained her fitness throughout a whole season for arguably the first time in her career.

“I’m very conscious that I am quite an injury-prone person,” Boulter said. “I want to be back in the gym, bulletproofing my body as quickly as possible.” The closest she will come to a holiday is a couple of days in London, where she intends to switch off completely.

As for Keothavong, this was an encouraging way to finish a season, which at one stage saw no British women in the world’s top 100. “If this group keep putting the work in,” she said, “there’s no reason why they can’t be right up there.”