Hopman Cup 2018: Roger Federer, Switzerland Beat USA to Advance to Final

Roger Federer led Switzerland to victory over the USA at the 2018 Hopman Cup on Thursday to seal a place in the tournament's final.

Federer beat Jack Sock 7-6 (5), 7-5, while Belinda Bencic overcame CoCo Vandeweghe 7-6 (6), 6-4, before the pair won the mixed doubles to win 3-0.

In the day's earlier match, Russia came from behind to beat Japan 2-1.

It was a hard-fought contest between Federer and Sock, with the pair producing just one break of serve in the whole match.

The Swiss maestro claimed an evenly matched first set via tiebreaker, with both players putting on a show of impressive serving.

It was not until 5-5 in the second set when Federer clinched what would be the decisive break, and he secured match point in the following with his 16th ace.

The Hopman Cup's official Twitter account provided the stats behind the match:

Bencic's win over Vandeweghe made sure of the result for Switzerland, their third win from as many matches in Group B, before teaming up with Federer to beat the American duo 4-3 (3), 4-2.

Earlier, Naomi Osaka handed Japan the lead in their tie with Russia, as she overcame illness to prevail 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (5) against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Per Alex Sharp for the tournament's official website, she said:

"I'm so happy to get through that match. I feel like being able to play against such a good player at that level, without feeling 100 per cent, I feel like I should be proud of myself.

"I just wanted to give the crowd an entertaining match and not play bad in my final match."

Her team-mate Yuichi Sugita was unable to produce a similar performance, though, and was handily beaten 6-4, 6-2 by Karen Khachanov in the Russian's first singles win at the tournament this year.

Russia sealed the comeback victory with a one-sided 4-1, 4-0 win in the mixed doubles.