Belgians breeze past France

Xavier Malisse fought back to beat France's Arnaud Clement 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 and give fourth-seeded Belgium a winning 2-0 lead in the Hopman Cup on Thursday.

Kim Clijsters earlier swept aside Virginie Razzano 6-3, 6-2 in less than an hour at the Western Australian Burswood Dome venue.

But the Belgian's performance was overshadowed by news that her boyfriend and world number one Australian Lleyton Hewitt had contracted chicken pox forcing him to withdraw from the mixed team event.

The disease may also scupper Hewitt's dreams of capturing the Australian Open where he is due to play as top seed in 11 days time.

Hewitt had been scheduled to partner Alicia Molik against third seeds Spain in a crunch Group B match on Thursday night.

However, the second-seeded Australians have had to scratch, putting Spain automatically through to Saturday's final against the winners of Group A, which has yet to be decided.

Clearly unaffected by the illness which has struck Hewitt, Clijsters was back to her best after an uncharacteristic slip-up earlier in the week against Italy's Francesca Schiavone.

FEELING GOOD

"That was much better today," Clijsters said. "I started feeling good out there, hitting the ball well."

She added that she had only just heard of Hewitt's test results but said that she was not concerned about catching the disease having suffered it as a child.

Motoring tirelessly around the indoor court at Burswood Dome, Clijsters ripped through the first set, pounding winners from the baseline past the lunging Frenchwoman.

The world number five refused to let up on Razzano in the second set and jumped into a 3-0 lead before the 72nd-ranked 18-year-old could get on the scoreboard.

Razzano could only win two games in the second set as Clijsters imposed her superiority.

Malisse, at 33 in the world, is ranked 16 places behind Australian Open runner-up Clement, but went into the match with a 3-0 head-to-head record against the Frenchman.

Two of those victories were in three sets on an indoor court and the match followed that pattern once again, Malisse coming back from a set down to claim victory.

"I'm playing well here," the 21-year-old smiled afterwards, before partnering Clijsters in the mixed doubles.