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France will play in their third Hopman Cup final after Alize Cornet and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beat defending champions Spain 3-0 at the mixed teams tournament yesterday. |
The French will face the top-seeded Polish pairing of Agnieszka Radwanska and Grzegorz Panfil in today’s final. France previously reached the title decider in Perth in 1998 and 2012.
Two years ago, the team of Richard Gasquet and Marion Bartoli lost the final to the Czech Republic pairing of Tomas Berdych and Petra Kvitova. In 1998, Mary Pierce and Cedric Pioline were beaten by the Slovak Republic’s Karina Habsudova and Karol Kucera.
Having won their first two group ties, the French simply needed to beat Spain’s Anabel Medina Garrigues and Daniel Munoz-De la Nava to qualify for the final.
Cornet, who lost her previous two singles matches this week, put them in front with an easy win over Medina Garrigues, 6-2, 6-2, despite being troubled by hamstring soreness during the second set.
Cornet said the problem was nothing more than early season tightness and, after Tsonga sealed the win for the French with a three-set win over Munoz-De la Nava, she took her place in the dead mixed doubles rubber.
Tsonga stretched his unbeaten streak in singles in Perth to six matches when he overcame a hiccup in the second set to beat for the 194th-ranked Munoz-De la Nava, who was a late replacement for Tommy Robredo in the tournament.
The Frenchman won 6-4, 6-7 (7/9), 6-2, after the Spaniard saved three match points in the second set and then levelled the match. The French won the mixed doubles in a pro set, 8-3. The evening tie, which had no impact on the final, descended into farce as the Czech Republic were handed a 3-0 win over the United States. Emerging American Sloane Stephens suffered a blow to her Australian Open preparations, retiring from her women’s singles clash with Petra Kvitova, citing a wrist injury after dropping the first set, 6-3. John Isner then forfeited his match against Radek Stepanek due to an ankle injury.