France beat the United States on Sunday to win the Fed Cup for only the second time in history after Amelie Mauresmo routed Meghann Shaughnessy, while Martina Navratilova extended her perfect match record in the competition to 39-0 with a consolation doubles win for the Americans.
Mauresmo defeated Shaughnessy 6-2, 6-1 to give the French an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the best-of-five finals. After France’s Emilie Loit dispatched Alexandra Stevenson 6-4, 6-2 in a battle of substitutes to make it 4-0, Navratilova teamed up with Lisa Raymond to overcome Loit and Stephanie Cohen-Aloro 6-4, 6-0, averting a shutout.
Navratilova hasn’t lost a single Fed Cup match since her first appearance for her native Czechoslovakia in 1975, but the US defeat marked the first time a team featuring Navratilova has lost a Fed Cup tie.
Mauresmo, unbeaten in Fed Cup play this season, shattered American hopes for an 18th US title in the event, seizing control of the first reverse singles match by breaking Shaughnessy in a game that went to deuce five times to take a 2-1 first-set lead.
Shaughnessy double-faulted in her next service game to give Mauresmo another chance for a break. Mauresmo took it, lobbing a return past the American to take the game and then serving at love for a 5-1 lead on her way to the win.
Mauresmo opened the second set by breaking Shaughnessy at love.
Down by two games and serving at love-15, Shaughnessy suffered a setback when a service winner was called back, and Mauresmo broke her again to go up 4-1.
Shaughnessy, who later said she was tired after a tough three-set loss on Saturday, faltered again on her next serve, saving one match point but sending a forehand on the following point to the net to lose the set and match.
”We obviously would have loved to win, so we’re all really disappointed about that,” Shaughnessy said.
Mauresmo played aggressively from the outset.
”I really wanted to bring that third point to the team, and that’s what I did,” she said.
France, which won its only other Fed Cup in 1997, went into the final day at Moscow’s Olympic Stadium with a daunting 2-0 lead after Mauresmo, the world number four, defeated Lisa Raymond 6-4, 6-3, and two-time major champion Mary Pierce struggled past number 17 Shaughnessy 6-3, 3-6, 8-6 on Saturday.
France has been ”not very lucky” in recent Fed Cups, Mauresmo said. ”This year, everything was perfect.”
Mauresmo, a finalist in the season-ending WTA Championships this month in Los Angeles, dropped only one set in her eight Fed Cup matches this season and powered France’s semifinal victory over Russia with a gruelling three-set win against number seven Anastasia Myskina and a straight-sets drubbing of number 13 Vera Zvonareva.
No team has come back from a 2-0 deficit in the final. But the US team had hoped to win both reverse singles matches, leaving the title up to Raymond and Navratilova.
The pair, who hope to play together in the Olympics next year, beat Elke Clijsters and Caroline Maes on Thursday to give the US a 4-1 semifinal victory over Belgium. Raymond also won two singles matches in the semifinals, and Shaughnessy was 1-1.
France beat The Netherlands in its only previous trip to the finals six years ago. France had lost to the US in its 10 previous encounters in the Fed Cup, the women’s version of the Davis Cup. The US has won 17 Fed Cup titles in 26
appearances.
The US team made it to this year’s finals without its top players, with the Williams sisters sidelined by injuries and Lindsay Davenport recovering from surgery. — Sapa-AP