 |
| |
|
 |
 |
 |
High Hopman hopes Despite struggles, Clijsters likes Belgium's chancesPosted: Tuesday January 01, 2002 11:38 AMUpdated: Tuesday January 01, 2002 11:55 AM
PERTH, Australia (AP) -- The United States and Australia may be favorites for the Hopman Cup tennis final but world fifth-ranked Kim Clijsters thinks her Belgian team has a chance -- as long as she doesn't play again like she did Tuesday. Clijsters, the tournament's highest-ranked female, was sluggish in a 6-4, 6-4 loss to Italy's Francesca Schiavone. But Belgium's Xavier Malisse beat Davide Sanguinetti 6-4, 7-5 and Clijsters and Malisse defeated Schiavone and Sanguinetti 6-3, 6-4 in the deciding mixed doubles to give Belgium a 2-1 win. Later Tuesday, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario won her singles match over Miroslava Vavrinec of Switzerland 6-2, 6-0 to lead Spain to its second consecutive 3-0 win in the tournament. Spain's world No. 30 Tommy Robredo ended any chance Switzerland, 0-2, had of successfully defending its 2001 title when he upset Roger Federer 7-6 (7), 6-2 to give Spain a winning 2-0 lead in the match. Sanchez-Vicario and Robredo then defeated Vavrinec and Federer 6-2, 6-3 in the mixed doubles for the sweep. Federer, the No. 12-ranked player in the world who partnered Martina Hingis to win the event last year, has yet to win a match in the tournament after losing to Australia's Lleyton Hewitt in three sets Sunday. Clijsters made 50 unforced errors while Schiavone produced the match of her career. It wasn't until set point that Clijsters, Hewitt's 19-year-old girlfriend, began to find a spark. She saved seven set points against Schiavone until a one-handed backhand down the line from Schiavone gave Italy the win. "I was rallying all right, I just couldn't finish off the points," Clijsters said. "It was just the winners that were missing, I had so many chances to finish off the points easily and just made some easy mistakes." "I think we've got a shot at it," Malisse said of Belgium's chances of making the final. "It's just three matches, if you have a great day and someone else has a bad day it's possible." Belgium, playing in the same group as the top-seeded United States, takes on the Americans -- Jan Michael Gambill and Monica Seles -- in the final round-robin match on Friday. Clijsters said the mixed doubles event made predicting winners difficult because the best singles players did not necessarily make the best doubles players. "I think we match up pretty well," Clijsters said. "Xavier is really handy, he serves well and has good returns and I think we should go all right together."
On Wednesday, Australia, 1-0, plays Argentina, 0-1, while the
United States, which won its opening match Monday, plays Italy.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
