Stevens to lead SA back in Fed Cup

The road back to international prominence for South Africa's women tennis players appears a great deal more daunting than that for the men - but a promising start was made on Thursday when the South African Tennis Association announced former world top tenner Greer Stevens as captain of the Fed Cup team that will participate in the Euro-Africa Group Two segment in Antalya, Turkey, next week.

The South African team consists of Natalie Grandin, ranked 243th in the world, Lizaan du Plessis, ranked 650th, Kelly Anderson, ranked 848th, and Christi Potgieter - a far cry, perhaps, from the combination of Pat Pretorius and Brenda Kirk that achieved glory by annexing the Fed Cup title itself and becoming one of the handful of nations to achieve this honour in the 1970s.

The event in Turkey will be played on a round robin format with countries divided into two pools of three.

The two top teams in each group will contest the semifinals, with the winning nations in the semifinals promoted to Euro-Africa Group One in 2010.

"Our team is in the building stages," said Stevens, now married and going by the name of Leo-Smith, "but I am very positive and encouraged by the potential of the players and the team spirit in the camp."

Countries participating in Turkey apart from South Africa are Georgia, Portugal, Turkey, Latvia and Morocco.