LONDON, April 27: Holders Russia will play Spain in the Fed Cup final after both teams made light work of their semi-final opponents on Sunday.

They quickly finished off the job they started on Saturday, with Vera Zvonareva beating US player Vania King to give Russia an unassailable 3-0 lead in the tie and Nuria Llagostera Vives overcoming China’s Peng Shuai to do the same for Spain.

With their places secured for the Sept 13-14 final, they played out their remaining dead rubbers. Spain eventually won their tie 4-1 and Russia were 3-1 up with the doubles to play.

The Americans, without former world number ones Serena and Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport, were never going to match the class of a Russian team that featured three top-20 players.

But in Sunday’s first reverse singles rubber 115th-ranked King shocked Zvonareva, ranked 101 places above her, by capitalising on the Russian’s early nerves to take the first set at Moscow’s Luzhniki arena.

Zvonareva soon regained her composure to send Russia into their fourth final in five years with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 win.

Fed Cup debutante Ahsha Rolle made up for Saturday’s crushing at the hands of Kuznetsova with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Elena Vesnina in the dead reverse singles.

Five-time champions Spain cruised into their first final since 2002, trampling on any notion that the tie would have been closer against a Chinese team who had looked slightly stronger than them on paper.

Holding a comfortable 2-0 lead after Saturday’s matches, Spain claimed victory when Vives used her strong forehand to outplay Peng 6-4, 6-4 in Sunday’s first reverse singles at the Beijing International Tennis Centre.

China, who had been hoping to reach their first Fed Cup final, avoided a whitewash when twice Grand Slam doubles champion Zheng Jie beat Carla Suarez-Navarro 7-6, 6-3 in the dead reverse singles.

But Spain underscored their dominance after Vives and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez eased to victory over Peng and Sun Tiantian in the dead doubles.

On Saturday Russia’s top-10 duo of Anna Chakvetadze and Svetlana Kuznetsova easily overcame little-known American opponents, while Spain surprised China when Carla Suarez-Navarro stunned the higher-ranked Peng Shuai.

Chakvetadze’s 6-4, 7-5 victory over King and Kuznetsova’s 6-2, 6-1 thrashing of Rolle put the hosts firmly on track for their fourth final in five years.

China’s hopes of reaching their first final took a battering in front of an enthusiastic 2,000-strong crowd. China stumbled at the first hurdle when world No 68 Peng was forced into making a series of errors by 132-ranked Suarez-Navarro, who won 6-3, 7-6.

Zheng Jie could not repair the damage, succumbing 6-3, 6-4 to top-ranked Spaniard Nuria Llagostera Vives in the second singles rubber.—Reuters