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1/4/09 12:50 PM | David Cox
The bookies favorites at this week's Hopman Cup may be France, but the Safin family will be providing a very strong challenge for Russia and they made a great start today with victory over Italy
Life is never dull for Marat Safin, and he hit the headlines by arriving in Perth with a face covered in cuts and bruises after a becoming involved in a dust-up back in Moscow.
Tournament director Paul McNamee, said, "I wasn't sure why he was arriving so late, why he was requesting to play a day later, but now I know why. I saw him in the lobby and he didn't look good."
Typically, Safin shrugged it off to seal victory for his country with a 7-6(5), 6-4 win over the dangerous Simone Bolelli who'd beaten him last year. Safin looked understandably rusty from the back of the court but powered down 14 aces to keep Bolelli at bay. There was little between them in set one, but Safin broke decisively to go 4-3 up in the second.
That gave Russia an unassailable 2-0 lead after Dinara Safina had ground down Flavia Pennetta 7-5, 6-3.
It was just as well as the Italians claimed some consolation by taking an entertaining mixed doubles rubber 7-5, 4-6, 10-2.
World No. 3 Safina is the highest ranked female player in the competition (the next is France's Alize Cornet, ranked 16th), which will be a massive advantage for the Russians in every match. However, much could depend on how the sibling bonding works in the mixed doubles as Safin will face some stern tests in the men's rubbers with Gilles Simon, James Blake, Lleyton Hewitt, and Nicolas Kiefer in the mix.
Russia won the event last year with Dmitry Tursunov and Nadia Petrova.
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