Russia fought back to claim a 2-1 victory over Germany in their opening tie at the Hopman Cup in Perth.
Russia had gone behind when world number five Elena Dementieva suffered an upset - a straight-sets defeat to Sabine Lisicki 6-4 6-1.
But the number two seeds steadied when Igor Andreev continued his personal dominance over Philipp Kohlschreiber winning 6-3 6-7 (7/2) 6-3 - the eighth time in as many career meetings the Russian has beaten his rival.
Russia then claimed the come-from-behind win when they won a closely-fought mixed doubles 6-4 7-6 (8/6).
Despite Germany's defeat the stand-out result of the morning session was Lisicki's surprise win against an out-of-sorts Dementieva.
The 20-year-old German is coming off a memorable 2009 when she reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon and improved her ranking to career-best 22 at season's end.
Lisicki's win today was highlighted by her powerful return of serve to leave her more-fancied rival consistently under pressure before conceding the match with her 10th double fault.
"I'm very happy with the win. I've been working really hard in the last couple of weeks," said Lisicki.
"I've been working on it (her return of serve) and it's getting better and better. It's good to have a weapon like that."
No comments:
Post a Comment