Hosts Australia caused an upset in the opening match of the Hopman Cup in Perth on Saturday by beating top seeds Russia courtesy of singles wins by Alicia Molik and Mark Philippoussis.
The Australian duo, both looking to return to higher rankings after injury and poor form, enjoyed emphatic wins in the mixed team event with Molik beating world number six Nadia Petrova in three sets and Philippoussis seeing off Dmitry Tursunov in two.
Tursunov-Petrova beat Molik and Philippoussis 7-6(6), 6-1 in the mixed doubles to pull back the score to 1-2.
Molik, who rose to a career-high world number eight in early 2005 before a debilitating ear infection saw her slip to a 2006 year-end ranking of 163, gave the hosts the perfect launch pad with a 6-2, 2-6 ,6-2 win over Petrova.
The 25-year-old, who came through the playoffs last week to earn a wildcard to the Australian Open, surged to a 3-0 lead in the first set before the Russian levelled the breaks at 3-2.
But another break, courtesy of a line call referred to Hawkeye, helped Molik seal the set 6-2. She then went 2-0 up in the second before Petrova reeled off six games in a row to level the match.
Molik crucially broke in the sixth game of the decider to shatter the Russian's resistance and she completed victory 6-2.
"In a sense I am restarting my career and I do feel like this is the start of something," Molik said.
"I am a harsh critic, so I probably got a little angry and upset with myself in the second set, but I am pretty proud of the way I cam back in the third set."
Philippoussis, the world 114, is hoping a good run of form will get him a wildcard to Melbourne Park and he made light of the 92 places between himself and Tursunov in the rankings with a polished 6-4, 7-6 victory to render the doubles contest dead.
Philippoussis broke in game three of the opening set before holding on to take the advantage against the world number 22, who was in his first competitive match since helping Russia lift the Davis Cup in December.
Despite the Russian having a set point at 5-6 in the second, the former US Open and Wimbledon finalist won 10 straight points to level the set and then win the tie-break, giving Australia an unassailable lead.
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