Fed Cup Action Resumes Sunday

Published April 25, 2010 at 2:40 p.m.
Birmingham, Al (WIAT)  The American women's Fed Cup team starts Sunday exactly where they started Saturday...tied with the Russians.  At stake is reversing a recent trend of the Americans coming up short plus a chance to bring the Fed Cup finals home to the USA.

Sunday action had two singles matches and a doubles match starting 1 p.m. CT on an indoor hard court at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex Arena.

The best-of-five match series is level at 1-1 after each country’s No. 1 player posted a singles victory on Saturday...U.S. No. 1 Melanie Oudin, playing in the opening rubber of a Fed Cup tie for the first time, defeated Alla Kudryavtseva, 6-3, 6-3, to avenge a first round Australian Open loss to the Russian three months ago...Bethanie Mattek-Sands played well against world No. 6 Elena Dementieva in the second match but lost 6-4, 6-3.

Sunday’s final day of competition features the “reverse singles,” starting with each country’s No. 1 nominated singles player squaring off followed by the No. 2 players facing off against each other...(Details on the singles matches are included on page 2 of the preview notes). The doubles match concludes the tie...Each match is best-of-three sets.

This is the eighth meeting between these two nations in Fed Cup, with the United States owning a 4-3 advantage but trying to end a three-match losing streak to their Russian rivals.

At stake for the United States is the opportunity to host the 2010 Fed Cup by BNP Paribas Finals, Nov. 6-7 – potentially the first Fed Cup Final in the U.S. since 2000...The winner in Birmingham faces either Italy or Czech Republic in the final (Italy led 2-0 after the first day of play in Rome)...Last year the U.S. rallied to beat the Czech Republic in Brno in the semifinals and lost to Italy in the Fed Cup Final in Reggio Calabria and under the home-away format would host either country in the final.

ORDER OF PLAY



DAY/TIME...MATCH...PAIRING*
 

Sunday...Singles C:...Oudin (USA) vs. Dementieva (RUS)

...Singles D:...Mattek-Sands (USA) vs. Kudryavtseva (RUS)

...Doubles:...Liezel Huber/Mattek-Sands (USA) vs. Dementieva/Ekaterina Makarova (RUS)

* Captains may substitute for either player up to one hour before the third singles match and no more than 10 minutes before the start of the fourth singles match.







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