{"id":5135,"date":"2012-12-31T09:51:17","date_gmt":"2012-12-31T01:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=5135"},"modified":"2012-12-31T09:51:17","modified_gmt":"2012-12-31T01:51:17","slug":"australia-defeats-germany-at-hopman-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2012\/12\/31\/australia-defeats-germany-at-hopman-cup","title":{"rendered":"Australia defeats Germany at Hopman Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An inspirational performance from Bernard Tomic and a knee injury to a tearful Andrea Petkovic powered Australia to a 3-0 victory over Germany in Saturday night\u2019s Hopman Cup tennis tie at Perth Arena.<\/p>\n

Tomic produced two spirited fightbacks to defeat world No.21 Tommy Haas 7-6(6) 3-6 7-5 in the $1 million mixed-teams event.<\/p>\n

Former world No.9 Petkovic beat 16-year-old Queenslander Ashleigh Barty 6-4 in the opening set of the women\u2019s singles rubber, but was then forced to make a tearful retirement due to a right knee injury, with her Australian Open campaign now in doubt.<\/p>\n

Petkovic required a reconstruction on her right knee in 2008, while she also injured it last year.<\/p>\n

Although the extent of her latest injury isn\u2019t known, Petkovic and her dad Zoran broke down in tears as she was receiving on-court treatment after the opening set.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate for Andrea, she\u2019s a great player,\u201d Barty said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope Andrea has a speedy recovery so she can play in the Australian Open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Petkovic\u2019s withdrawal meant Australia was handed a 6-0 6-0 win in the mixed doubles, giving the eighth seeded nation a 3-0 tie win ahead of Wednesday night\u2019s clash with top-seeded Serbia.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Haas held a 6-1 lead over Tomic in the first-set tiebreak, but the 34-year-old\u2019s fluency deserted him when it mattered most as the Australian reeled off the next seven points to take the set.<\/p>\n

Haas looked to have the rubber in the bag after winning the second set and edging out to a 5-3 lead in the third.<\/p>\n

But Tomic refused to throw in the towel, breaking back to even the scores before a Haas double fault handed Australia the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very tough first set. It was my first set in a few months,\u201d Tomic said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how I got out of that tiebreak.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been training really hard and extremely well. I\u2019ve been training well so hopefully it will be good preparation for the Australian Open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tomic, who reached a career-high ranking of No.27 in June, has since slid to 52nd after a poor end to the year in which he made first-round exits at his final three tournaments.<\/p>\n

But after embarking on a seven-week training campaign, Tomic insisted he was fresh, hungry, and ready to make amends for his list of on and off-court controversies in 2012.<\/p>\n

The early results appear good, with Tomic\u2019s willingness to dig in and fight his way out of big trouble on two occasions particularly heartening.<\/p>\n

Spain beat South Africa 2-1 in the tournament\u2019s opening tie, despite Fernando Verdasco losing his men\u2019s singles rubber 7-6(5) 6-4 to Kevin Anderson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An inspirational performance from Bernard Tomic and a knee injury to a tearful Andrea Petkovic powered Australia to a 3-0 victory over Germany in Saturday night\u2019s Hopman Cup tennis tie at Perth Arena. Tomic produced two spirited fightbacks to defeat world No.21 Tommy Haas 7-6(6) 3-6 7-5 in the $1 million mixed-teams event. Former world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5894,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}