Heather Watson is through to the second round after 3 sets against Kristyna Pliskova. She lost the first set 4-6, won the second set 6-3 and the third set 6-1. She's got a tough second round opponent, the 16th seed Elise Martens who she beat last week at Hobart.
Elise Martens got her revenge by thrashing Heather Watson 6-3, 6-0. Heather is returning home to rest as she has a slight abdominal injury before going off to Slovakia for the Fed Cup next month.
The Harriet Dart/Simona Halep match is in progress - first set has gone to Simona Halep 2-6.
The GB Fed Cup team go to Slovakia this week for their qualifying round against Slovakia. The team consists of Heather Watson, Harriet Dart, Naitktha Bains, Katie Swan and Emma Raducanu. The matches are 2 singles, 1 doubles and 2 reverse-singles. All 5 matches will be played though the team with at least 3 wins goes through to the finals.
The matches will be indoors on a clay surface. It's going to be a hard week for GB as Johanna Konta and Katie Boulter would have been playing if they were able to.
Although the winning country goes through to the finals in Hungary on the 14th to 19th April, it is not clear what happens with the losing country, According to the Fed Cup site the losing countries compete in the play-offs in the same week as the finals; the play-offs also include 8 countries from the various Group 1 rounds so 16 countries in all; the 8 winning countries in the play-offs qualify for next year's qualifiers (the equivalent of this week's qualifiers); the 8 losing countries are effectively relegated back into the Group 1 countries next year. That's what the Fed Cup site seems to be saying. Wiki is saying nothing about play-offs - the 8 losing countries this week are relegated back into the Group 1 countries next year.
So rather confusing.
BBC interview transcript of Heather Watson talking ahead of this week's Fed Cup:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/51384252
Matches tomorrow:
Anna Karolina Schmeidlova (ranking 199) v Heather Watson (74)
Viktoria Kuzmova (65) v Harriet Dart (141)
and on Saturday:
Viktoria Kuzmova v Heather Watson
Anna Karolina Schmeidlova v Harriet Dart
Lastly the doubles on Saturday:
Viktoria Kuzmova (30) and Magdalena Rybarikova (980) v
Naiktha Bains (204) and Emma Raducanu (no doubles ranking).
Those are the nominated players though the doubles players may get changed depending on how the singles results go.
Change in the players in today's matches.
Rebecca Sramkova (202) v Heather Watson - match in progress and the first set is currently 0-5 in favour of Heather.
Then Anna Karolina Schmeidlova v Harriet Dart followed by the doubles currently with the players as previously posted.
GB drawn away to Mexico (GB has generally been drawn away over the years rather then at home so as usual it's another away visit). Means that Mexico have the advantage of choice of venue and surfacs and a home crowd.
At present GB have a world ranking of 14 and Mexico 26. Tie is played 17 and 18 April. Winner goes through to the qualifiers round in 2021, loser drops back down to the respective Group 1 groups (those are the Americas, Asia/Oceania and Europe/Africa - as more countries play in the Europe/Africa group that group is split in two sub-groups).
Although Anne Keothavong will try to encourage Johanna Konta to be in the Fed Cup team, it's not helped by players wanting to be playing on clay courts in Europe in preparation for the French Open in May. Johanna Konta was in 3 tournaments on clay in the run up to the French Open but the first wasn't until late April.
Heather Watson wins her first round in the Mexican Open beating Coco Vandeweghe 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Heather's ranking is now 69 and will improve with any wins over the next month as she lost every match during that time last year.
Katie Boulter is back in action, her match is tonight.
Well done Heather! 
Heather Watson is up to 49th in the new rankings. In the Race Singles rankings (which are based just on the current year, she's now 17th.
She and Johanna Konta are in another tournament this week in Mexico. In the first round Heather is against Tatjana Maria (one of her regular doubles parttners) and Kim Clijsters agsinst Johama. The winners meet in the second round.
Johanna Konta beat Tatjana Maria 7-6 (7-4) 6-3. She plays Anastasia Potapova in the quarter-finals in Mexico.
Lesia Tsurenko beat Katie Boulter 6-3, 6-3 in the second round match at Indian Wells.
The Open at India Wells runs from March 11 to 22. That's followed by the Miami Open. Those are premier mandatory tournaments, so one stop down from the Grand Slam events. Ranking points are based on a player's best results of any 16 tournaments but the Grand Slam and premier mandatory tournaments are included in that 16 even if the player didn't play in that tournament.
The Virtual Madrid Open starts today with 32 top players competing via Playstations.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/52434238
Prize money goes to funds to assist lower ranked players.
Draw and links to watching matches on Facebook:
https://www.madrid-open.com/en...virtual-pro-en/draw/
Johanna Konta is in group 2 against Elina Svitolina. Time shown is 15:45 but I don't know if that's BST time or not.
Yesterday's results resulted in the round robin were Sorana Cirstea winning all 3 of her games, Johanna Konta winning 2, Victoria Azarenka winning 1, and Elina Svitolina losing all 3. Sorana Cirstea and Johanna Konta goe through to today's quarter-finals. Johanna Konta is against Caroline Wozniacki who won all 3 of her round robin games.
The Lawn Tennis Association is planning to bring back the National Championships to this country some time in the autumn. They were last held in 2002 but were scrapped due to dwindling interest. Very different circumstances now and this could be the main tennis tournament in this country this year. Would be held indoors.
For the women, Johanna Konta, Heather Watson and Katie Boulter could feature. It's also just possible that Laura Robson could return. She is doing limited training. She's been living with others in a flat in South West London - one of those is Katie Boulter so they've been doing some exercising together.
There's also talk of a British Closed Women's Championships this summer. That would be the time that Wimbledon would have been held. Of course that's far from certain to go ahead.
The "Battle of the Brits" which has been in the news very recently is men only.
No update on the "Closed Women;s Champtionships" which might be at the same time (23-28 June).
The LTA is intending to have a series of domestic events at the National Tennis Centre at Roehampton during July. Each event will be open to the 16 highest ranked men and 16 highest ranked women in Britain. The first event, if these are approved, would begin on Friday 3 July. Although there is prize money, that's a tiny fraction of Grand Slam events.
The top 16 women include all those who have represented GB in the Fed Cup i recent times (and Katie Boulter squeezes in to the top 16 despite her lenghy absence). In 4th place is Samantha Murray Sharan who is not Andy's sister but does have an uncle of that name.
Latest news of dates are for the LTA domestic events (=LTA British Tour) are:
3-5 July (Tier 1 event)
10-12 July (Premier level event)
18-19 July (Tier 1 event)
24-26 July (Premier level event)
(don't know what the difference is between those types of events)
From 14-18 July is the Progress Tour Champtionships. Harriet Dart, Naomi Broady, Samantha Murray Sharan, Jodie Burrage and Emma Raducanu have already signed up. Johanna Konta isn't expected to be in this one. As with the other events this will be at the National Tennis Centre. Looks as if that's the new name for the Closed Women's Championships.
US Open is due to go ahead behind closed doors from 31 August to 13 September:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/53070667
No qualifying rounds, no mixed doubles, and the doubles will be for 32 pairs rather than 64.