Italy was facing the almost unbeatable Russian team, that has only been defeated once in the last five years, and it was in Italy in 2006. And the solid and fighter Italian team did it again. After Pennetta captured the first point defeating Chakvetadze, Francesca Schiavone had to face a much thougher opponent, the leader of the Russian squad and WTA #9 Svetlana Kuznetsova. Despite losing the 1st set by 6/1, Schiavone kept fighting and come back to upset Kuznetsova in 3 sets. Everything seemed done for the Italians, but the victory of Kuznetsova over Pennetta put all the pressure over Schiavone, who had to overcome talented youngster Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. And it wasn't an easy task as the match went to the 3rd set, where Schiavone imposed her experience to take the decissive point and give the victory to Italy.
In Brno, the Czech Republic was the clear favourite over an American team with the absence of the Williams sisters and Bethanie Mattek as the only Top-100 player. Furthermore, Mattek is not at her best form at the moment and lost her matches against Kvitova and Safarova. But then 19 years old Alexa Glatch, #114 in the WTA ranking, came into the spotlight, and playing a superb tennis sweeped Iveta Benesova (WTA #29) and Petra Kvitova (WTA #48), dropping only 3 games on each match and taking the tie to the decissive doubles match, which was won by Americans Huber and Mattek.
