Stirring win over Belarus not enough for Britain

SARAH Borwell and Elena Baltacha produced a magnificent fightback to beat Olga Govortsova and Tatiana Poutchek 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 and help Great Britain defeat Belarus 2-1 in their Europe/Africa Group 1 Fed Cup tie in Lisbon.

But the victory was not enough to take them through to the weekend's play-offs for a place in World Group II following their defeat against Austria on Thursday.

At 3-6 and 0-3 down it looked as though Britain were heading to defeat in the deciding rubber, but the British pair produced a fantastic fightback to take a topsy-turvy second set 7-5, having had to save two match points.

They then eased to victory with a 6-2 win in the third set, despite requiring five match points to put the seal on their success.

Anne Keothavong had put Britain 1-0 up after she beat Ekaterina Dzehalevich 7-6 (10-8), 6-1 in the opening rubber.

The British No3, who has not played since July of last year due to a knee injury, had to save two set points during the first set tie-break, but dominated the second set to ease to a straight- sets victory.

"I'm glad I got through that and it's nice to get my first win after so long out of the game," she said. "It is just such a pleasure to be out there on the court – it really is.

"After I got through the first set, I loosened it up and started hitting a bit more freely and gained a bit of confidence. Those are the kind of matches I need – these next few months are going to be tough for me, but this is a start."

Yorkshire's Katie O'Brien was beaten 6-3, 6-3 by Govortsova in the second match to level the tie. That result saw the tie go down to the wire, but Borwell and Baltacha prevailed in the decisive doubles match.

• Top seed Gael Monfils will meet Feliciano Lopez in the first semi-final of the SA Tennis Open in Johannesburg, while David Ferrer set up a last-four clash against Stephane Robert at Montecasino.

Frenchman Monfils, the World No13, had little trouble against the eighth seed Lu Yen-Hsun, who turned in an error-strewn performance on his way to a 6-1, 6-4 loss.

Monfils will now meet Lopez for a place in Sunday's final after the Spaniard beat Rajeev Ram.

In the bottom half of the draw, second seed Ferrer dropped just four games on his way to a crushing 6-1, 6-3 win over Somdev Devvarman.

The Spaniard, who also reached the semi-final in the same competition last year, wasted little time against the Indian with his strong first serve carrying him a long way – the World No18 won 20 out of 25 points to ease home in 66 minutes. Ferrer will play Robert in the last four after the Frenchman came through a testing 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 win against Dustin Brown.