Malek leads Germany to 3-2 win over Japan in Fed Cup

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TOYOTA (Japan), Jul 15 (AFP): Tatjana Malek won all three of her matches to lead Germany to a 3-2 victory over Japan Sunday to move up to the World Group next season in the Fed Cup tennis tournament.
The 19-year-old Malek, who defeated Erika Takao on Saturday and Ayumi Morita 6-4, 6-3 earlier Sunday to tie at 2-2, teamed up with Anna-Lena Groenefeld to beat Morita and Rika Fujiwara 6-3, 6-4 in the decisive doubles.
In the opening match on Sunday, Takao put Japan 2-1 up by posting her first Fed Cup win, beating Angelique Kerber 6-3, 6-2 before Malek snatched the momentum.
Malek and Groenefeld once went 2-4 down in the second set, but strongly took the following four games breaking the seventh and ninth games to put an end to the best-of five competition in one hour 13 minutes.
Germany will return to the World Group next year, while Japan were relegated to the World Group II.
It was Germany's sixth victory over Japan in seven encounters. Their only defeat came when former world number four Kimiko Date shocked then world number one Steffi Graf in an exciting tie that ended 3-2 in Tokyo in 1996.