The first day of the Fed Cup meeting between Russia and Serbia ended with both teams winning one match. Somewhat surprisingly, especially after the talks about her injury, Jelena Jankovic upset Svetlana Kuznetsova on Day 2, which gave Serbia a 2-1 lead on home soil. Congratulations to Jankovic for winning both her singles matches!

So, Jankovic defeated Kuznetsova 6-3 4-6 6-3, but her countrywoman Ana Ivanovic couldn’t finish off the tie and lost to Alisa Kleybanova 6-2 6-3 in the following match. Ivanovic’s free fall ended a long time ago, but the sad thing is that she is still lying wounded on the ground.

With the result tied at 2-2, the decisive doubles match was played, and as Jankovic and Ivanovic are not used to playing doubles, they were knocked out by Kuznetsova and Kleybanova 6-1 6-4.

Four-time Fed Cup champions Russia thus entered the Fed Cup semifinals which will be played on 24-25 April. Their opponent will be the US, who won 4-1 in France, without the Williams sisters. (photo via Blic)

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I was supposed to go to Fed Cup tie between Serbia and Russia in Belgrade, but the weather conditions are so bad that there was no way I could travel 86 km. Anyway, I watched it on TV from my cozy room and I could see Ana Ivanovic getting crushed by Svetlana Kuznetsova, and Jelena Jankovic recovering from a set and 4-1 down to beat Alisa Kleybanova.

World No.4 Kuznetsova defeated Ivanovic 6-1 6-4 in the first match of the day. After blowing the Serb in the first set, Kuznetsova rallied from 4-2 down in the second to seal the first win for Russia. Once ranked No.1 now No.23 Ivanovic made 50 unforced errors and six double faults.

The second match of the day looked to be heading in the direction of Russia’s victory as well, but world No.8 Jankovic overturned the result while trailing 4-6 1-4 and won 11 games in a row to defeat 31st-ranked Kleybanova 4-6 6-4 6-0.

As you can see, after the first day of the Serbia vs. Russia Fed Cup quarterfinal the countries are tied at 1-1. Reverse singles and doubles will be played tomorrow, on Sunday. (photos via Blic)

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Serena Williams will face Kim Clijsters and Svetlana Kuznetsova will play Venus Williams in the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Showdown for the Billie Jean King Cup, exhibition event to take place March 1 at Madison Square Garden in New York.

The semifinal pairs were determined according to the 2009 year-end rankings. The highest-ranked player was paired with the lowest ranked, and the remaining two are to face each other.

The exhibition features no ad scoring format, and each participant will compete in a one-set semifinal with the winners advancing to a best of three-set final.

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Russia and Serbia will face each other in this weekend's Fed Cup first-round tie played in Belgrade, Serbia.

The latest news is that Russia’s team will be stronger than previously planned, as their highest ranked player world No.4 Svetlana Kuznetsova changed her mind and joined world No.31 Alisa Kleybanova, No.38 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and No.40 Vera Dushevina in the team.

However, Serbia’s team is likely to be weaker than expected because of Jelena Jankovic’s health problems. It should have consisted of former world No.1s Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic, along with Ana Jovanovic and Bojana Jovanovski, but now we will see what will happen.

Here’s what Jankovic told her official website:

No, I haven't come to Belgrade yet, and I'm still in Florida, where I'm fighting with back injury received in Melbourne. I didn't want to speak in public about the problems that struck me in Australia, about the cold and the back injury that occurred during a practice while trying to change the way I served, because many would describe it to as a justification for the lost match […] Unfortunately, the situation got complicated, so I'm still in Florida, sad and in great uncertainty whether I would start the journey to my home town.

Serbia is making its World Group debut. Russia won the Fed Cup four times between 2004 and 2008 and Kuznetsova was part of three winning Russian teams. (photo by our reader Elisa)

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The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour interviewed Vera Zvonareva, Elena Dementieva, Jelena Jankovic, Samantha Stosur and Svetlana Kuznetsova about their favorite place for a holiday.

Poor Samantha Stosur, she had to go to Bali instead of Hawaii.

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