(April 24, 2010) The USA-Russia Fed Cup semifinal tie is knotted at 1-1 after today's opening singles matches.

Melanie Oudin, the No. 1 singles player on an American squad that is without injured World No. 1 Serena Williams and fourth-ranked Venus Williams, staked the USA to a 1-0 lead with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Alla Kudryavtseva in the opening match at the 5,500-seat BJCC Arena
in Birmingham, Alabama.

World No. 6 Elena Dementieva evened the match for Russia, scoring a 6-4, 6-3 victory.

In tomorrow's reverse singles Oudin plays Dementieva followed by Mattek Sands against  Kudryavtseva. Oudin and Dementieva have split their two meetings with Oudin scoring a three-set win in the second round of the 2009 US Open and Dementieva rallying for a three-set victory in the Paris Indoor semifinals in February.

World No. 1 doubles played Liezel Huber and Mattek-Sands are scheduled to face Dementieva and Ekaterina Makarova in the doubles match that concludes the best-of-five match semifinal.

Italy's Flavia Pennetta defeated Lucie Hradecka, 6-4, 7-5 and teammate Francesca Schiavone followed with a 6-0, 6-2 triumph over the Czech Republic's Lucie Safarova to give defending Fed Cup champion a commanding 2-0 lead over the Czech Republic in the semifinal staged on the red clay of Rome.

Should the USA and Italy prevail, the Americans would host Italy in the November 6-7th Fed Cup final.  Italy swept the USA, 4-0, in the 2009 final.