<div><p>Elena Dementieva's service yips didn't stop Russia edging past Germany 2-1 in their Hopman Cup Group B tie here Monday.</p><p>As has often been the case during her career, Dementieva struggled to hold serve and dropped her opening singles match of 2010 in disappointing fashion to youngster Sabine Lisicki.</p><p>But Igor Andreev was able to square the tie by beating Philipp Kohlschreiber in the men's singles.</p><p>The Russians then claimed the match with a gripping 6-4, 7-6 (9/7) win over the Germans in a marathon deciding mixed doubles that lasted over two hours.</p><p>Dementieva's old service woes surfaced again in her first outing of the year with the promising Lisicki winning 6-4, 6-1 in a surprisingly one-sided encounter that lasted barely an hour.</p><p>The 28-year-old world number five appeared to have made great strides with her serve over the past year, but was a long way off the touch that saw her storm through her last Antipodean campaign.</p><p>Then, she won successive tournaments in New Zealand and Sydney before reaching the semi-finals of last year's Australian Open on the back of a 15-match winning streak.</p><p>The shaky Dementieva's serve was broken six times by Lisicki, and double faults from her racquet on the final two points of the match took her tally to a horrible 10 in just nine service games.</p><p>The normally precise Dementieva's forehand also misfired, with a confident Lisicki hitting 13 forehand winners to just three.</p><p>Dementieva admitted the quality of Lisicki's play exposed her own lack of match practice.</p><p>"I wish I had more preparation for a match like that," the Russian said.</p><p>It was a similar story in the mixed doubles, with more double faults from Dementieva, who was only able to hold serve twice from five attempts.</p><p>However, her groundstrokes improved noticeably in the mixed and heavy hitting from she and Andreev, who by contrast was always able to serve himself out of any trouble, enabled them to scramble the win.</p><p>While it left Dementieva with something to ponder, the women's singles match was a tremendous start to the new season for the 20-year-old Lisicki, who was troubled by ankle and shoulder injuries in the second half of 2009, but still ended the year ranked 22nd, after climbing up from 54.</p><p>"I've been working really hard in the off-season and I am really happy to win that match," she said.</p><p>"I want to get higher in the rankings, I did a great jump last year and I am looking forward to this year."</p><p>Andreev leveled the tie by continuing his dominance of Kohlschreiber, with his eighth win in as many meetings with the German, 6-3, 6-7 (2/7), 6-3.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=66262860&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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