Russia spared Hopman Cup organizers from consulting their calculators on Thursday by downing France 2-1 and booking a place in the Perth final against Slovakia. Defeat for Russia would have meant it, along with France and Italy, would have each won two of their three round-robin Group B ties. The scenario would have left organizers to select the finalist based on a complicated breakdown of which nation won more matches, sets and games. After splitting the singles matches with France, Dinara Safina and her brother Marat Safin ensured they controlled their own fate by overpowering Alize Cornet and Gilles Simon 6-4, 6-3 in the deciding doubles. It gave Russia a 3-0 record in the round robin stage of the mixed team event and they will be favorites to beat unheralded Slovakia in Friday's final. Italy had kept alive their hopes of reaching the final when they benefitted from two walkovers to rout Taiwan 3-0 earlier in the day but Russia's win put it and France out of the running. Germany's Nicolas Kiefer had his Australian Open preparations thrown into disarray after injuring his ankle during his clash against Slovakia's Dominik Hrbaty. The 31-year-old German was leading 3-1 in the first set of the mixed teams round-robin event when he twisted his ankle and was taken off the court in a wheelchair, gifting the tie to Slovakia. Slovakia's Dominika Cibulkova had earlier beaten Sabine Lisicki 7-6, 6-4 in the women's singles match. Slovakia was awarded the mixed doubles tie on a walkover. In the other Group A match on Thursday, James Blake and Meghann Shaughnessy combined to beat Australia 2-1 and consign the host to the bottom of the group. World number 10 James Blake thrashed Lleyton Hewitt 6-2, 6-2 in an hour. Casey Dellacqua managed to record her first win of the event in front of her home crowd in Western Australia with a 6-3, 6-4 victory before Blake beat Hewitt then combined with Shaughnessy to win the mixed doubles in a tiebreak decider 6-3, 5-7, 7-6. Cilic thru, Moya stunned In Chennai, third-seeded Croatian Marin Cilic roared into the quarterfinals of the Chennai Open with a clinical display on Thursday, while twice former champion Carlos Moya was stunned by Indian wildcard Somdev Devvarman. World number 27 Cilic dismantled Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan 6-0, 6-4 after baseliner Devvarman pulled off a spectacular 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 victory over the former world number one. Cilic will meet seventh seed Janko Tipsarevic next. The Serbian beat Israeli Dudi Sela 7-6, 6-4. Devvarman will next meet the big-serving Croatian Ivo Karlovic who pounded 16 aces to shut out Czech Ivo Minar 6-1, 6-4. German fifth seed Rainer Schuettler and eighth seed Marcel Granollers of Spain also made it to the quarterfinals.
