To no one's surprise, Russia has a 2-0 lead in the Fed Cup semifinal round between Russia and the U.S. More interesting is Spain's 2-0 lead over China, and the results of some of the other play-offs:
Italy and Ukraine are tied at 1-1. Francesca Schiavone defeated Mariya Koryttseva in a very tight contest, 3-6, 7-6, 7-5. And Alona Bondarenko defeated Karin Knapp, 6-3, 6-3. Flavia Pennetta had to withdraw from Fed Cup because of a groin injury.
The most interesting scores, however, come from the Israel-Czech Republic play-off: Petra Kvitova defeated Shahar Peer, 2-6, 6-3, 6-0. Then Tzipi Obziler beat Lucie Safaova, 6-0, 3-6, 6-4.
Other current World Group scores: Argentina is tied 1-1 with Germany, France leads Japan, 2-0.
World Group II scores: Belgium leads Colombia, 2-0, Switzerland and Austria are tied 1-1 (Patty Schnyder defeated Austrian rising star Tamira Paszek, 6-7, 6-2, 6-1), the Slovak Republic leads Uzbekistan, 2-0, Serbia leads Croatia, 2-0.
Actually, China-Spain is being played on hard court (I watched a bit of it today, and I didn't think I remembered it being on clay... and I just checked the website, and it said Rebound Ace), which makes the first day results all the more eyebrow-raising.
ReplyDeletePeng not coming through in the spotlight isn't really a surprise, but I thought Zheng would perform better.
That looked like clay to me. My bad. And you're right--that does make it more impressive.
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