Lleyton Hewitt opens Australia's quest for a second Hopman Cup with an intriguing first-up battle against Italian Davide Sanguinetti in Perth on Sunday.

Hewitt will lead the home nation's charge in the mixed teams event when he with Alicia Molik take on the canny pairing of Sanguinetti and Silvia Farina-Elia in the round-robin encounter.

Big-serving Molik will have her hands full in the opening rubber, with Farina-Elia ranked 77 places above her at No.17.

But world No.1 Hewitt should be able to account for No.52 Sanguinetti, who has had a breakthrough year on tour with his first two ATP title wins in Milan and Delray Beach.

However, Sanguinetti's lack of pace with his ground strokes will probably force Hewitt to adjust his usual counter-punching style of play.

"He's a different kind of player, he doesn't give you a lot of pace," Hewitt said.

"He plays with probably the loosest re-strings on tour."

"I have played him twice and won so far pretty comfortably, but it's always different first match of the (tennis) New Year."

If it does, as expected, come down to a decider in the mixed doubles, Farina-Elia could well be the key with eight doubles titles to her name.

But the South Australian combination performed well last time around defeating the Swiss pair of Roger Federer and Miroslava Vavrinec, and Argentinians Mariano Zabaleta and Paola Suarez.

Molik and Hewitt played tennis at the same club in Adelaide and first combined in mixed doubles as 10-year-olds.

And Molik said she believed the No.2 seeded Australian team could claim just the second tournament victory for the hosts from 15 attempts.

"Yeah absolutely, if we go on last year, the two of us combined really well in the mixed especially and I feel really confident playing with Lleyton anyway," Molik said.

Unless Molik can play well above her lowly ranking, the Australian team will become very reliant on their doubles combination at the Burswood Dome event.

Australia meets the Slovak Republic (No.51 Dominik Hrbaty and No.8 Daniela Hantuchova) on Tuesday and the Czech Republic (No.7 Jiri Novak and No.37 Daja Bedanova) on Thursday, with the winner of group B making Saturday's final.

The powerful American duo of Serena Williams and James Blake are tournament favourites and play their first group A tie on Monday.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP