honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted at 6:52 a.m., Sunday, December 30, 2007

Tennis: Top seed Serbia beats Taiwan in Hopman Cup

Associated Press

PERTH, Australia — Jelena Jankovic and Novak Djokovic won their singles matches today as top-seeded Serbia beat Taiwan 3-0 at the Hopman Cup mixed teams tennis tournament.

Jankovic defeated Hsieh Su-wei 6-4, 6-4 while Djokovic, who struggled with a back injury in the second set, rallied to beat Lu Yen-hsun 7-5, 2-6, 6-3.

With the match already decided, Jankovic and Djokovic beat Hsieh and Lu 3-6, 6-2, 10-8 (super tiebreaker) in mixed doubles.

Later Sunday, France beat Argentina 2-1.

France's Tatiana Golovin opened with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Gisela Dulko before Argentina's Juan Ignacio Chela beat Arnaud Clement 6-3, 6-1. Chela won on his fifth match point with an ace after double-faulting on his fourth.

Clement, a doubles specialist, and Golovin then beat Dulko and Chela 6-3, 6-2 in mixed doubles to clinch the match.

"I think we both struggled a bit today because of the layoff, but I was obviously happy with the result," Golovin said of her singles win.

Trailing 2-0 after dropping her opening service game, Jankovic won four straight games en route to winning the first set. Jankovic won three straight games in the second set to win her debut match at the tournament.

"It was my first match of the year, after two months off, and I didn't expect myself to play my best tennis," Jankovic said. "I'm not that happy with the way I played but I will try to get my rhythm again."

Djokovic won the 75-minute first set after Lu fought off five set points.

Hampered by the back ailment that he received treatment on during the second set, Djokovic trailed 4-0 before dropping the set. But Djokovic bounced back to take a 3-0 lead in the final set and secure the match.

Each team plays three times in the round-robin format, with the top team in each group advancing to Friday's final.