Russia will meet defending champion France in the Fed Cup final after they both achieved 5-0 sweeps of Austria and Spain, respectively, in the semifinals on Thursday.
France routed Spain without dropping a set, and Russia's top-ranked Anastasia Myskina was unexpectedly delayed by Yvonne Meusburger of Austria before winning 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 and advancing the home side into the weekend final at Krylatskoye Ice Palace.
PHOTO: AFP
"If we don't succeed in playing our best tennis, we have no chance to win at all," France captain Guy Forget said. "And if we do manage to play our best tennis from the first point to the last -- which is not easy -- maybe we have a small chance."
US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova crushed Austria's Fed Cup debutant Daniela Kix 6-1, 6-1 in 39 minutes, then she and Elena Likhovtseva won the doubles 6-2, 6-2 over Meusburger and Patricia Wartusch.
Earlier, Nathalie Dechy secured an insurmountable 3-0 lead for France when she dispatched Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-3, 6-1 in the first reverse singles. A backhand winner down the line brought up match point, which she claimed with a smash for her fifth consecutive Fed Cup win.
Tatiana Golovin then downed Marta Marrero 6-3, 6-4, and the French duo of Marion Bartoli and Emilie Loit beat Marrero and world No. 1 doubles player Virginia Ruano Pascual 7-5, 6-2 to complete the shutout.
"It's the best result we could imagine," Dechy said. "We won all the matches in straight sets and didn't spent much time on the court. It's a good preparation for the final."
French Open champion Myskina didn't drop a game the day before in her singles victory, and wasn't expected to be troubled by Meusburger, who only took two games off Kuznetsova on Wednesday.
But after leading 3-0, Myskina dropped six straight games and the first set.
"She surprised me by playing very slowly and I couldn't catch her rhythm," Myskina said. "On the other hand, after 3-0, I wanted another 6-0, 6-0 victory and started rushing things and made a lot of mistakes."
Myskina finally calmed down in the second set and regained control to help Russia reach its fifth final, in search of its first ever Fed Cup title.
France, which beat Russia in the semifinals last year, will play in its third final.
"The Russians are better physically, technically and mentally. When you win [Grand] Slams in singles, it means you are better then all the others," Forget said. "But I don't think we are that far behind [the Russians]."
Two-time Grand Slam champion Mary Pierce was available to return from a sore shoulder injury, but Dechy believed 16-year-old Golovin was playing well for France, after rising almost 300 places in the world rankings this year to 27th.
Moscow-born Golovin won seven consecutive games against Marrero to win the first set and take a 4-0 lead in the second in the dead fourth rubber.
"I think it's very good for her to play these matches," Dechy said of Golovin. "These two starting semifinals are easier then a start straight away in the final. She has gained experience. So I think she will be even better on the weekend."
France looked forward to meeting Russia in the final on Saturday and Sunday.
"I think, they [Russia] are much stronger on paper then we are. So we will be outsiders," Dechy said. "They have everything behind them -- they are playing on their stadium, they have the biggest team ever, so we can only make a surprise. And we are ready to do something good."
Golovin added: "I think I have the game for it. It's just a matter of how consistent I am. I think it's all mental, it's how confident you are when you get on the court, how physically you feel. But that's a kind of a goal -- to be out there and beat the top players."
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier