Britain's Andy Murray and 15-year-old Laura Robson won their mixed doubles match Wednesday to clinch a 2-1 victory over Germany at the Hopman Cup.
Murray and Robson beat Sabine Lisicki and Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3, 6-2, in the deciding doubles match after Murray had beaten Kohlschreiber 6-4, 6-2 in the singles and Lisicki downed Robson 7-6 (5), 6-3.
Britain has a 2-0 record and is strongly placed to make Saturday's final in the eight-country tournament. Germany dropped to 0-2.
Group B rival Russia missed a chance to stay level with Britain when they were beaten 2-1 by Kazakhstan later Wednesday. Elena Dementieva of Russia opened with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Yaroslava Shvedova before Kazakhstan's Andrey Golubev outplayed Igor Andreev 6-4, 6-3 to level the match.
Shvedova and Golubev then won the mixed doubles 7-6 (3), 6-4 to even Kazakhstan's record at 1-1. Russia plays Britain on Friday in its final round-robin match.
Although Robson has failed to win either of her singles matches, she's played strongly in both of Britain's mixed doubles victories. That was particularly so on Wednesday when she served well, hit stinging passing shots and made well-timed lobs.
"I think I definitely carried him today, my back is sore,'' Robson joked as Murray stood beside her at a post-match television interview.
"I thought I played much better today than on Monday in the singles but I still lost so there's a lot of stuff to work on in the future,'' Robson added. "It (my age) is not an excuse.''
Murray opened the second set of his singles match by holding serve, then broke Kohlschreiber to love in the next game, with the German double-faulting on game point.
From there, Murray overpowered Kohlschreiber for successive wins in the season-opening Hopman Cup.
"I didn't really give him too many chances on my serve,'' Murray said. "I was happy to get it over quickly.
"That was the main difference, he didn't make too many first serves and I was able to capitalize when it was on the second.''
Australia-born Robson served for the first set at 5-4 but was broken by Lisicki, who also came from behind in the tiebreaker to take the advantage.
The No. 22-ranked Lisicki also beat Elena Dementieva of Russia in straight sets on Monday.
"It's different to play against a lefty,'' Lisicki said. "I haven't played a lefty in a while but after the first set I got used to it pretty well and got into my game.''
Spain, 2-0, leads Group A and will try to maintain its unbeaten record when it plays Australia, 1-1, on Thursday. Romania, 1-1, takes on the 0-2 United States in the other Group A match Thursday.
