The Hopman Cup Has Balls

Hopman Cup XXIII is off to a rocking start in Perth, Australia with the home nation earning a hard-fought win in their tie against Belgium.  Justine Henin back from injury beat Alicia Molik 64 64 to give Belgium the lead, but Lleyton Hewitt also back from injury tied it up with a 64 63 win over Ruben Bemelmans.  With it all coming down to doubles, Alicia and Lleyton squeaked out the decisive Match Tiebreak by a score of 10-8 over Justine and Ruben.

For those who are unfamiliar with Hopman Cup, allow me to explain since it truly is unlike any other event.  There are 8 nations represented by one male and one female player who are orgainized in 2 Groups of 4 teams.  The order of matches in each tie is the women’s singles, the men’s singles, and the mixed doubles.  The leading teams in each group after three round-robin matches qualify for the Final.  Here are the current standings as well as the full roster of players competing at this special event:

GROUP A STANDINGS:

1-0  SERBIA – Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic
1-0  AUSTRALIA – Alicia Molik and Lleyton Hewitt
0-1  BELGIUM – Justine Henin and Ruben Bemelmans
0-1  KAZAKHSTAN – Yaroslava Shvedova and Andrey Golubev

GROUP B (no matches played yet):

GREAT BRITAIN – Laura Robson and Andy Murray
ITALY – Francesca Schiavone and Potito Starace
FRANCE – Kristina Mladenovic and Nicolas Mahut
USA – Bethanie Mattek-Sands and John Isner

In other Day 1 action, Serbia had far less trouble with a 3-0 win over Kazakhstan.  Other than Novak Djokovic looking rusty in his first set loss to Andrey Golubev, Nole and Ana made easy work of the Kazakh team of Golubev and Yaroslava Shvedova.  After his match Nole explained, “I don’t want to find any excuses, but we got here just two days ago and it’s very hard to get used to the time change and the conditions here.  All in all, I’m just happy to not embarrass Ana and bring her one point because she is playing really great.  I was just trying because I wanted to make her happy. We have known each other since we were five and we played all the junior events that you can imagine, and we have a great relationship. She’s the nicest girl I know in tennis and for me she’s the best in the world.”

There have been rumors for the longest time about a possible romance between Novak and Ana, and all I will say is that they look like a beautiful couple here as they enjoy their time together at the Hopman Cup New Year’s Ball.

Cheers to a beautiful couple....of tennis players.

 

Let’s take a look at a couple more snapshots from the Ball.  Marathon men John Isner and Nicolas Mahut pose for a pic together, and they will face off tomorrow for the first time since the 70-68 in the 5th set win by John at Wimbledon last year.  Andrey Golubev stands alone and looks like he just got stood up at prom.

Nice sneaks, Johnny!

When's the tux due back?