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France beats Taiwan

PERTH: Alize Cornet overcame jet lag and French teammate Gilles Simon some rustiness from the off-season to beat Taiwan on Saturday at the Hopman Cup.

Cornet beat Hsieh Su-wei 6-4, 6-4 and Simon, who moved up in the rankings from No. 29 to 7 last year, defeated Lu Yen-hsun 6-3, 7-6(8) to give France a 2-0 winning lead.

Cornet and Simon beat Hsieh and Lu 6-4, 7-6 (9) in mixed doubles to complete a 3-0 win, saving five set points in the tiebreaker. The French duo next play Italy on Tuesday.

Simon had problems closing out the Taiwanese player in the second set, allowing Lu to break his service in the sixth game to get back into the match and force a tiebreaker.

Bit lucky

“I played great tennis and then when I was 6-3, 3-1 up I just lost my concentration and he played better,” Simon said. “I’m a little bit lucky because I should have lost the second set.”

It was the only Saturday match at the mixed team event. On Sunday, Russia, featuring the brother-sister combination of Marat Safin and Dinara Safina, plays Italy’s Flavia Pennetta and Simone Bolelli.

Australia takes on Germany in one match on Monday and the defending champion United States meets Slovakia in the other.

The U.S, Australia, Germany and Slovakia are playing in Group A while Russia, France, Italy and Taiwan are in Group B. The winners of each group play in the final next Friday.

The results: Hopman Cup: Group B: France 3 beat Taiwan 0 (Alize Cornet bt Hsieh Su-wei 6-4, 6-4; Gilles Simon bt Lu Yen-hsun 6-3, 7-6(6); Cornet and Simon bt Hsieh and Lu 6-4, 7-6(9). — AP

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