Italy has once again made the most of having two competent and committed Fed Cup players, wiping out the Czechs 3-0 when Flavia Pennetta put down Petra Kvitova 7-6(3), 6-2. Pennetta and another longtime Fed Cup player, Francesca Schiavone, also won their singles matches on Saturday.

It’s the fourth time in the last five years that Italy has reached the final, but this was the team’s first opportunity to play at Rome’s historic Foro Italico. “I was really nervous because everybody expected this point but I did my best and tried to fight from the beginning to the end – and here we are in the final again,” said Pennetta.—M.C.

The No. 1 doubles team of Cara Black and Liezel Huber have split. Huber reported on her blog on USTA.com that she’s going to play with different partners, starting with Jelena Jankovic in Stuttgart and then with Nadia Petrova in Rome (Petrova’s regular doubles partner, Sam Stosur, is limiting her doubles play). She also might play some summer events with her U.S. Fed Cup teammate, Melanie Oudin.

While Huber and Black had a successful partnership, winning 28 titles together including four Grand Slams, they have been unable to score a win over the Williams sisters, losing to them in the last three Grand Slams in straight sets. In their last tournament as a team, Huber and Black were upset in the first round of Miami.

“It was not an easy decision,” Huber said. “We have had a great partnership. We both want to be better players and right now it is best for us to just take a little break. We might get back together and we might not….I am just going to work hard and pick up partners as I go along. That is another challenge in life but I am going to enjoy and embrace the challenge. Fortunately I am healthy so I think it will be okay. I have spoken to Melanie about playing some of the American hardcourt tournaments but it is a question of ranking and getting into the tournaments. I am open to any possibility.”

Black will be playing with Shahar Peer at the upcoming WTA event in Stuttgart.-M.C.

BARCELONA, Spain (AP)—Spain’s Fernando Verdasco beat Robin Soderling of Sweden 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 Sunday to win the Barcelona Open final for his second title this season.

Verdasco ensured an eighth straight Spanish winner after topping the second-seeded Soderling in a matchup of baseline groundstrokes.

The fifth-seeded Verdasco broke Soderling on consecutive service games to take the first set before faltering in the second set to even the match.

Verdasco scored the decisive break in the fourth game of the last set when Soderling hit wide. Verdasco served out the match for his second title of the season in his third final.

Verdasco dropped to the red clay to savor a win that came only after he accepted a last-minute wild-card invitation.

“I wasn’t planning to play this week so you can imagine my feelings right now. It’s incredible,” the ninth-ranked Verdasco said after improving his overall record in finals to 5-7 while snapping a four-match losing streak to Soderling.

“At the last minute they convinced me to come and now I’m lifting the trophy so thanks to all of them.”

Verdasco’s clay court season started began last week at the Monte Carlos Masters, where he lost to Rafael Nadal in the final. Nadal skipped the Barcelona Open after winning it five straight years.

The eighth-ranked Soderling was looking to become the first Swede to win the tournament since Kent Carlsson. Soderling fell to 5-8 in career finals.

ROME (AP)—Fourth-seeded Andy Murray will face a tough crowd in his opening match at the Rome Masters against top Italian, Andreas Seppi.

The 49th-ranked Seppi beat another Italian—Fabio Fognini—6-0, 6-3 in one of three first-round matches Sunday.

Also, Jeremy Chardy of France defeated Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia 6-4, 6-4 and will next face No. 3 Novak Djokovic.

Victor Hanescu of Romania edged Michael Berrer of Germany 6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-3 in the opening match inside the new 10,500-seat stadium at the Foro Italico.

The top eight seeded players in the clay-court tournament have first-round byes.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP)—Bethanie Mattek-Sands beat Ekaterina Makarova 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 to keep the United States’ Fed Cup title hopes alive.

The reverse singles victory tied the semifinal matchup with Russia at 2-2 on Sunday.

It set up a decisive doubles match with Mattek-Sands teaming up with Liezel Huber against Alla Kudryavtseva and Elena Dementieva.

Mattek-Sands had been 1-3 in Fed Cup singles play but came up with some crowd-pleasing shots and strong play at the net. She flung her racket about 15 feet in celebration of the win.

Mattek-Sands is trying to become the first American to win consecutive live matches—fourth singles and then doubles—to close out a Fed Cup tie since the best-of-five format was adopted in 1995.

Captain Mary Joe Fernandez (1996) and Lindsay Davenport (1995) are the only Americans to win two last-day matches.

ROME (AP)—Having finally won the French Open last year, Roger Federer is feeling far less pressure entering the clay-court season.

The top-ranked player is preparing to play both singles and doubles at the Rome Masters this week.

“Questions are already very different. It doesn’t start off with, ‘Oh, are you going to win the French Open this year?’ So it’s just a bit more relaxing,” Federer said at the Foro Italico Sunday.

“I also got a lot of confidence from winning the French Open last year. You feel like if you can do it once you can do it twice.”
 
Still, Federer rated rival Rafael Nadal as the top player on clay after the Spaniard’s dominant performance at last week’s Monte Carlo Masters, which Federer skipped.

“He’s been on an absolute tear for the last five years. He’s hardly lost any matches—you can almost count those on one hand—and he’s only lost one match at the French Open, so I would think he’s still the favorite,” Federer said.

“I would love to say I’m the big favorite but I don’t think it’s quite right, even though I won the French Open last year. He’s just proven again in Monaco how tough he is.”

Federer said he is feeling refreshed after a month off, having taken a vacation and then prepared for the clay season with 10 days of intense workouts.

“Practice is (the) key during this stage getting ready for clay and the long stretch from Rome on to Wimbledon,” he said. “It’s a long one and I need to be fresh at the back end as well at Wimbledon, when it comes to hopefully playing another final.”

Nadal’s victory in Monte Carlo snapped an 11-month title drought during which the Spaniard struggled with various injuries. Nadal decided to withdraw from this week’s Barcelona Open to stay fresh.

“When I have physical problems it’s more difficult,” Nadal said. “For me, it’s important to run well, to move well and practice well. If I can’t do these things it’s very difficult to have the chance to win a tournament, especially the important tournaments.”

Nadal’s run of four consecutive French Open titles ended with a fourth-round loss to Robin Soderling last year, and the two players could meet again in the quarterfinals here.

Nadal is also in Federer’s half of the draw, while 2008 champion Novak Djokovic is the top player in the other half.

Djokovic is coming off a lopsided semifinal loss to Fernando Verdasco in Monte Carlo, a match in which the Serb struggled to hold serve.

“There’s a lot of things going on in my mind when I need to serve. But this is the crisis I guess everybody has to go through, and I’m trying to work on it mentally and technically,” Djokovic said. “It’s going to pay off. I know it’s going to come back. I know I’m going to serve as I was. But in this moment there is a little struggle.”

A new 10,500-seat stadium is making its debut at this year’s tournament, and players are already raving about how close the fans are to the court.

“It looks like the Colosseum of tennis,” Djokovic said. “It’s all very close, it’s great.”

Federer will pair with Swiss Davis Cup teammate Yves Allegro in doubles.

“I haven’t played doubles in a while, so I asked Yves if he was in the mood to do it,” Federer said.

Federer and Allegro were given a wild card, and will open against Johan Brunstrom of Sweden and Jean-Julien Rojer of the Netherlands Antilles.

In singles, the top eight players have first-round byes.

Federer will play either Marcos Baghdatis or Ernests Gulbis, and Nadal will face either Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay or Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany.

BRUSSELS (AP)—Kim Clijsters is out for up to six weeks after tearing a muscle in her left foot during a Fed Cup singles match Saturday.

The injury forced her to pull out of Sunday’s reverse singles in the best-of-five series against Estonia, and casts doubt on whether the U.S. Open champion will be able to play in next month’s French Open.

“When the doctor tells you six weeks, then you start panicking. You think of your season’s planning,” she told VRT network.

The year’s second Grand Slam tournament starts in four weeks, on May 23, but Clijsters is hoping that intensive treatment will shorten the estimated six-week rehabilitation.

“I am someone who heals reasonably fast,” she said.

Clijsters beat Maret Ani 6-4, 6-2 Saturday despite discomfort in her left foot in the second set.

“I felt during a backhand that something serious was happening. I had never felt this before,” she said.

The bruising became more painful overnight and tests at a hospital showed liquid had built up in her foot, and a tear in one of the muscles on the inside of her foot.

She said she will use crutches for a few days to rest the foot. It was unclear when she could resume full training.

The injury is Clijsters’ first major setback since she returned from retirement last year. Often slowed by injuries before she retired, she took special care in her comeback to avoid wearing down her body.

Since her return in Cincinnati last August, she won the U.S. Open for her second Grand Slam title. This year, she claimed the Brisbane International in January and last month won the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami.

Belgium defeated Estonia 3-1 to advance to the World Group of the Fed Cup.

ROME (AP)—Flavia Pennetta beat Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic 7-6 (3), 6-2 Sunday to qualify defending champion Italy for its fourth Fed Cup final in five years.

The victory gave the Italians an insurmountable 3-0 lead in the best-of-five series, and they went on to win two more matches for a 5-0 shutout.

The 60th-ranked Kvitova was a late substitute for the top Czech player, Lucie Safarova, who managed to win only two games against Francesca Schiavone on Saturday.

The 15th-ranked Pennetta opened the series with a win over Lucie Hradecka.

Russia is playing the United States in the other semifinal.

Italy won the Fed Cup in 2006 and 2009.

Kvitova double-faulted to hand Pennetta the first-set tiebreaker, and Pennetta closed out the match with an ace on her first match point before an enthusiastic crowd at the Foro Italico.

Sara Errani then beat Hradecka 6-4, 6-2 and Errani and Schiavone teamed in doubles to defeat Hradecka and Kveta Peschke 6-2, 6-4.

The U.S. and the Russia are deadlocked at 1-1 in the Fed Cup semifinals after Melanie  Oudin avenged her Australian Open defeat to Alla Kudryavtseva by besting the Russian  6-3, 6-3 in the opening rubber, and Elena Dementieva evened the tie with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

“I knew I really needed to try to beat Alla today because Elena is going to be really tough tomorrow,” Oudin said. “This is the first time I’ve ever played the first match in Fed Cup.  So I liked it better, I think.”

Oudin upset Dementieva  at the 2009 US Open but the veteran recently got the better of her at the Paris Indoors. “I expect a tough match against Melanie,” Dementieva said: “I think this kind of court [indoor hard] suits her game. Physically she looks pretty fit, pretty good at this match against Alla. Tomorrow I will be aggressive from the beginning, try not to go to long rallies because I know she feels very comfortable at the baseline.”

Russian captain Shamil Tarpischev  may substitute Ekaterina Makarova for Kudryavtseva. Dementieva is also scheduled to play doubles with Makarova if the tie goes to a fifth rubber.-M.C.

Defending Fed Cup champions Italy got off to a 2-0 lead in their first appearance at the Foro Italico as they faced the Czech Republic in the semifinals.