USA on the Board
6/01/2010
By Chris Pike
THE USA might be out of contention for the Final of Hyundai Hopman Cup XXII, but Melanie Oudin and John Isner have enjoyed their time in Perth and to get a win on the board over Australia in the mixed doubles on Tuesday.
Oudin and Isner went down to Spain by losing the women’s, men’s and mixed doubles rubbers on Sunday, and lost both singles encounters to Australia’s Sam Stosur and Lleyton Hewitt on Tuesday, but did score a 2-6, 6-1, 7-6 (10/5) win in the mixed, securing it in the Match Tie-break.
Isner stands at 2.06m and has a massive service game that was on song against Robredo on Sunday, but it was off a little to start his singles match with Hewitt and then the mixed doubles against Australia.
Isner lost the opening five games to Hewitt before losing the match 1-6, 7-5. The 24-year-old big man scored impressive wins in 2009 over Andy Roddick, Tommy Haas, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Tomas Berdych, Marcos Baghdatis, Gael Monfils and Marat Safin. He hates playing Hewitt though.
The Australian also beat him in straight sets at the ATP World Tour Masters in Shanghai late in 2009. Isner found form the longer the mixed doubles went, though, and was glad to help the United States to a first rubber win this year.
“In both singles and doubles it started that way. I really hate playing Lleyton. It’s the second time he’s cleaned my clock in the last three months so it’s tough. I’m glad Mel and I came out to win the mixed doubles though,” Isner said.
“It was a lot of luck actually. I hit a shot that didn’t touch my strings that went in for a winner and that’s how we broke serve. We gained a lot of confidence from that.”
Oudin is just 18 years of age and a star in the making, which she demonstrated during 2009 by making the fourth round of Wimbledon and then had a massive run at the US Open to make the quarter-final.
She has lost her two opening singles matches in Perth, but to quality opponents in world No. 13 Stosur and No. 26 Martinez Sanchez. There was little Oudin could do against Stosur’s serve on Tuesday.
The Aussie sent down 14 aces and just one double fault, leaving Oudin’s only hope of returning well to guess the right direction. She didn’t do that too often, but enjoyed the doubles experience with Isner, who stands 38cm taller than her.
“Sam served unbelievably in the singles with 14 aces and averaged two per game, so there was not much I can do about that. She disguised it really well and I couldn’t tell where it was going. I had to guess a lot of the time and unfortunately guessed wrong,” Oudin said.
“We played really well in the mixed, though, and we were happy that we got the win. It was the least that I could do because he does all the work on his service game.”
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