Intro:

France's Alize Cornet and Benoit Paire beat Australia's Casey Dellacqua and Marinko Matosevic 2-1 in their Hopman Cup Group B tie.

Script:

All smiles at the toss but there was a lot riding on this Hopman Cup rubber. That's because earlier France's Alize Cornet came from a set down to beat Australia's Casey Dellacqua... And in the men's singles Marinko Matosevic did the same to level things up with a win against Benoit Paire.

All that meant the winner of this would take the match.

It was a tight first set but Matosevic and Dellacqua seemed to hit form at just the right time in front of the Perth crowd.

It went to a tie-break though and that was won by Cornet and Paire.

France were looking to bounce back from their opening defeat to Britain's Andy Murray and Heather Watson. They earned a match point on Australia's serve and when Dellacqua hit her forearm wide. Cornet knew her chances of defending this title were still alive.