CoCo Vandeweghe gave team USA the perfect start to their Hopman Cup campaign in Perth with a straight-sets win over Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
The world number-10 ranked American looks much fitter than when she was
in Australia last summer and puts that result down to “working my butt off” in her first off-season with former Australian Davis Cup champion, coach Pat Cash.
“I didn’t put all of that work in to not (arrive fit),” she said.
She impressed in the opening set against the 15-ranked Russian, winning in 44-minutes, losing only eight points on her serve.
The second set was much tougher, but Vandeweghe dropped only one game on her way to a 6-3 6-3 victory.
Vandeweghe came close to claiming some silverware during her last summer in Australia, but fell agonisingly close.
With Jack Sock, team USA lost to France in the final of the mixed-teams Hopman Cup last January.
Two weeks later in Melbourne at the Australian Open, Vandeweghe lost to Venus Williams in the women’s semi-finals beating seeded players Roberta Vinci, Angelique Kerber and Garbine Muguruza along the way.
This year she is looking for more and is pretty happy with how her campaign has started.
“Great straight sets win – it’s what you want, to get out there and feel comfortable again and playing a live match,” she said.
“You train for this but it’s a little bit different when you have the crowd and the atmosphere behind you.
“It’s the great thing about coming to Hopman. You get so many high-quality players to come and compete and we’re all competing hard for our countries and to perform well for the Australian Open.
“I hope Jack feels the same with a bit of fire in the belly. I’d like to take home a trophy at the start of the year.”
Sock and Vandeweghe are playing together for a second consecutive year and are favourites to win a seventh Hopman Cup for the USA in the 30th year of the event.
Sock, ranked eight in the world, can claim the opening tie for the USA with a win in his men’s clash with Karen Khachanov, ranked No.45.
Russia, making their first appearance since 2010, won their only title in 2007.
They will play the popular Swiss team of Roger Federer and Belinda Bencic on Tuesday.
Team USA will meet the Japanese team of Naomi Osaka and Yuichi Sugata, also on Tuesday.