The first round was completed in Fes, Morocco, Wednesday, with a couple of notable results. Young Melanie Oudin snapped a four-match losing streak with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 defeat of No.3 seed Spaniard Lourdes Domínguez Lino.
The 19-year-old American will face Slovenian Polona Hercog in the second round.
STUTTGART, GERMANY: For Andrea Petkovic, it was her first tie-clinching victory in a Fed Cup match and this was a great time for it, as the win secured Germany a place in the prestigious World Group for 2012.
Petkovic, the world No. 19, defeated USA’s Melanie Oudin 62 63 in the Fed Cup by BNP Paribas World Group play-off tie at the Porsche Arena, giving Germany an insurmountable 3-0 lead over the Americans and a spot in next year’s World Group.
“I never won a clinching match and it means a lot to me,” Petkovic, 23, said. “Especially with all that has happened in the last weeks, I think the expectations were rising after the good results I had the last couple of months.
“I was really happy and relieved because I really feel Germany belongs in the World Group and I was so happy to be the one who made the final point.”
With the loss, USA moves down to World Group II in 2012, marking the first time since that the most successful nation in Fed Cup history has played outside the top tier.
Petkovic and Goerges had defeated McHale and Oudin, respectively, on Saturday to give Germany a commanding 2-0 lead heading into the final day of play.
In the third singles match, both Petkovic and Oudin came out aggressively but it was Petkovic who struck first. At 2-2, Oudin was up 40-15 on her serve but four consecutive errors gave the game and lead to Petkovic. She struck again two games later to go 5-2 ahead when Oudin double faulted.
From there, Petkovic really began dictating the points and taking control of the match, including winning nine straight games from the first set through a 4-0 lead in the second.
Like her teammate McHale the day before, Oudin fought back from the 4-0 deficit to pull to 4-3, but Petkovic remained focused and held to lead 5-3 before breaking Oudin in the next game with a return winner for the victory.
“I think I was playing really well, I was playing clever,” Petkovic said. “At 4-3, I came to the bench and (captain) Barbara (Rittner) said ‘Relax, you are still serving at 4-3, everything is fine.’ And I just relaxed and I went for it then on the big points like yesterday.”
Oudin credited Petkovic for her great play and acknowledged she was just the better player on the day. And she tried not to think about what a loss would mean for the Americans.
“I definitely started off well and after I lost my serve at 2-2, it was like she took her game to another level and she got really confident and she started going for bigger serves,” she said.
“Today she got more confident and she could go for even more and more, and then stepped in and controlled the points. She was playing well and she has been playing well, so she has a lot of confidence and it is really hard to beat people like that.
“I try not think about it but I knew if I lost this match then our team loses and we go down to World Group II. So that was a little bit of weight on my shoulders knowing that,” she added.
For American Fed Cup captain Mary Joe Fernandez, her young team played well and hard in each match, but came up a little short and she credited the German side for being the better and stronger team over the two days.
“They played extremely well and with a lot of confidence,” she said of the German team. “We are obviously disappointed; we go into every tie with high expectations even when we are the underdogs. There were not that many opportunities for us looking back. It was a tough battle.”
“We are going to continue to work hard, get stronger and better and just keep building,” she added. “This team has improved every single year and they are going to continue to improve.”
Reported by fedcup.com
STUTTGART, GERMANY: Andrea Petkovic and Julia Goerges both served well, played their best tennis at the decisive moments and fought off late charges from their opponents.
And the result was a commanding 2-0 lead for Germany over USA after the first day of play in the Fed Cup by BNP Paribas World Group play-off tie on red clay at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart.
Petkovic, the world No. 19 started things off for Germany with a 63 64 victory over 18-year-old Christina McHale who was playing in just her second career Fed Cup match but kept up a high level of play to challenge the German throughout the first set.
Goerges, the world No. 34, then fought back from a second set challenge from Melanie Oudin to win 62 76(5).
Throughout the match, Goerges served at a high level, including winning 78 per cent of her first serves and hitting seven aces.
“When someone serves like that, there is not much you can do and it puts a lot of pressure on your serve, because you know they are serving that well consistently,” Oudin said. “I knew she would confident going into the tiebreak because she had served that well the entire match, hitting every corner and I couldn’t read it.”
The second set tiebreak did remain close; Goerges took leads at 3-1 and 4-3 but Oudin rallied to take a 5-4 lead after two Goerges errors. However, the German rebounded with a crosscourt winner and Oudin then hit a return wide for Goerges’ first match point opportunity, which she converted when an Oudin shot landed past the baseline.
“I was hitting pretty good and deep and putting pressure on her. I served pretty well today,” Goerges said. “(The first set) it was definitely easier than the second one because she pulled everything up and was fighting until the end.”
USA now needs three victories on Sunday with Oudin and Petkovic playing the opening match followed by McHale v Goerges and then the doubles match between Liezel Huber and Vania King for USA and Sabine Lisicki and Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany.
The winner of the tie keeps its place in World Group for 2012 with the loser being relegated to World Group II next year.
Reported by NBC
Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Melanie Oudin will lead the United States against host Germany in a Fed Cup World Group Playoff next week.
U.S. captain Mary Joe Fernandez announced that Mattek-Sands and the 19-year- old Oudin will be joined on the squad by doubles stalwart Liezel Huber and 18- year-old Christina McHale.
The 17-time champion Americans, who lost to Italy in the 2009 and 2010 Fed Cup finals, and Germans will play a best-of-five tie in Stuttgart from April 16-17.
The USA-Germany victor will head back into the World Group in 2012.
Former world No. 1 Venus Williams has committed to attend the tie and support her compatriots, though she is not expected to play for the U.S. due to injury.
The U.S. is 8-4 all-time against Germany in Fed Cup competition, which includes a 6-3 record against the former West Germany. The Americans defeated Germany 4-1 in the last meeting between the two countries in a 2008 quarterfinal in La Jolla, California.
The Americans lost to Belgium, 4-1, in the 2011 quarterfinals back in February.
On a side note, 19-year old Oudin lost in the 1st round of the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, SC to Austrian Tamira Paszek in two sets.
No. 29 Daniela Hantuchova broke American Melanie Oudin in the final game of the match to claim a 6-1, 6-3 victory in the 2nd round of the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami.
In her 12th appearance at the Sony Ericsson Open this year, the Slovak stormed the court, breaking Oudin’s serve twice and gaining a 5-0 advantage before Oudin won her first service game. “I felt like I was really playing well overall, moving good, and that was a good sign,” Hantuchova said. She converted five break points and could face Caroline Wozniacki in the third round. “I’ve got nothing to lose,” she added.
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