TENNIS in DEPTH.

There are so many tennis events scheduled for January 2009 that it is hard to keep track of them all, and difficult to figure out who is playing where. Each year a select group heads to Western Australia’s capital of Perth to participate in the Hopman Cup. It is the official mixed doubles team championship of the ITF, and is named after the celebrated Aussie coach Harold Hopman. Hyundai Corp. is the event sponsor and this is the event’s 21^st. year of competition. The format is for 8 teams divided into 2 groups, that will play a round robin, the winners from each group will meet in the final on Jan. 9^th.

Group A.

USA. Serena Williams & James Blake.

Australia. Casey Dellacqua & Lleyton Hewitt.

Germany. Sabine Lisicki & Nicolas Kiefer.

Slovak Rep. Dominika Cibulkova & Dominic Hrbaty.

Group B.

Russia. Dinara Safina & Marat Safin.

France. Alize Cornet & Giles Simon.

Italy. Flavia Pennetta & Simone Bolleli

Taipei. Su-Wei Hsieh & Yen-Hsun Lu.

This will be the return to active competition for Aussie favourite Lleyton Hewitt who has been out with an injury since August. Both Serena and James Blake are former champions of the event though not with each other as playing partners. The brother and sister act of Dinara and Marat pose a threat and are favoured to win Group B and meet the USA in the final. The team from Chinese Taipei were the winners of the Asian Hopman Cup that was played in November. All these players will head to Melbourne for the Australian Open at the completion of this tournament.

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