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Australia's hopes of lifting the Billie Jean King Cup have crashed in the semi-final as Storm Sanders and Ajla Tomljanovic both lost to their Swiss opponents.
Australia's shock progress to the semi-finals of the Billie Jean King Cup has been ended ruthlessly as Ajla Tomljanovic and Storm Sanders were both hammered by their Swiss opponents in Prague.
Alicia Molik's team, without world No.1 Ash Barty in their ranks, had worked wonders to reach the last-four of the revamped Fed Cup team event, but the Swiss task proved a mountain too high on Friday.
Sanders, who'd won her previous two matches in the tournament, had been the Aussies' secret weapon all week at the O2 Arena but the Queenslander was blown away by her fellow southpaw Jil Teichmann 6-0 6-3.
Tomljanovic then ran into an inspired Olympic champion Belinda Bencic, who took just 68 minutes to outplay the Australian No.2 in straight sets, 6-3 6-2.
It was a huge anti-climax for the team which had harboured outlandish dreams of being the first Australian outfit since 1974 to win what's become known as the women's World Cup of tennis.
Instead, it will be the Swiss who'll face the Russian Federation in Saturday's final after they'd earlier beaten the US 2-1 in a thrilling, marathon tie.
Captain Molik reckoned she was "incredibly proud" of the team, admitting: "It was our goal to get to the final but you've got to give credit to the Swiss team - they played brilliant tennis, they were pretty awesome.
"It was simple, they were too good."
Seven-times winners Australia, runners-up the last time the tournament was held in 2019, had been seeking to reach back-to-back finals for the first time since 1980.
But Sanders' dream week quickly entered nightmare territory when world No.39 Teichmann, who's ranked 92 places higher than the Rockhampton player, condemned her to a horror start.
The nervous-looking world No.131, coughing up errors while Teichmann was practically flawless, was 'bagelled' 6-0 in just 18 minutes and managed to win only three points all set.
Things got worse at the start of the second set when Sanders went 3-0 down and looked on the verge of tears, until she glanced up to see Billie Jean King herself watching from the stands.
It inspired Sanders to get on the board by winning the 10th game, and she was at least able to raise her arms in mock triumph and give a broad smile.
"I was trying to enjoy the experience even though I was getting absolutely smashed out there," recalled Sanders.
"I saw Billie Jean sitting there watching and as I watched her, I thought 'yes, pressure is a privilege', and I tried to embrace it and have fun.
"It was good to have a bit of chat with her afterwards too. Made me feel a bit better," added the 27-year-old, who even managed to battle back to 3-3 in the second set.
But though she'd beaten a top-20 player Elise Mertens during the Australians' group match win over Belgium, there was no chance of a repeat as Teichmann took advantage of her opponent's 20 unforced errors to win in just 63 minutes.
Tomljanovic then couldn't cope with Bencic, who's won five singles and doubles matches this week, as the Swiss took a 2-0 lead that meant the remaining doubles match wasn't required.
In the other tie, Liudmila Samsonova won her singles rubber before returning with Veronika Kudermetova in the deciding doubles to help Russia defeat the US.
Samsonova and Kudermetova beat Shelby Rogers and CoCo Vandeweghe 6-3 6-3 after Danielle Collins had levelled the tie for the US with a 6-7 (9-7) 7-6 (7-2) 6-2 win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Samsonova had beaten Sloane Stephens 1-6 6-4 6-3.
