Justine Henin-Hardenne edged Flavia Pennetta 6-4, 7-5 Saturday to pull Belgium even with Italy 1-1 after the opening day of the Fed Cup final.

Earlier, Francesca Schiavone beat Kirsten Flipkens 6-1, 6-3 to give Italy the early lead.

Reverse singles and doubles are scheduled for Sunday when Henin-Hardenne, the world No. 2, opens against No. 14 Schiavone.

Belgium had been heavily favoured to win the final until Kim Clijsters pulled out last month with an injured wrist. The 98th-ranked Flipkens showed that replacing Clijsters will be difficult.

Henin-Hardenne closed out her tight match Saturday by winning the last five games for a straight-set victory, but it was far from easy. After the overwhelming domination of Schiavone in the opener, Pennetta quickly wrapped up the first three games against Henin-Hardenne.

However, Henin-Hardenne _ who has five Grand Slam titles on her resume _ forced Pennetta into errors and regained the initiative with two service breaks for a run of five games in a row.

She was soon serving for the set, which she wrapped up in 45 minutes.

The Belgian built on her momentum in the second, playing spectacular attacking tennis to immediately break again. Still, Pennetta fought for every point and won the next four games.

At 5-2, she was two points away from the set and increasingly drawing Henin-Hardenne into errors, with the Belgian's backcourt game particularly suspect.

Pennetta then allowed Henin-Hardenne back and, serving for the set, she committed two double faults and the easiest of volley errors.

It was all the French Open champion needed. She wrapped up the match on the indoor hardcourt with some of her best points to delight the home crowd of 6,000 at the Spiroudome.

Henin-Hardenne came into the final in far from ideal circumstances. Still smarting from losing to Russia's Maria Sharapova in the U.S. Open final last Sunday, she complained of fatigue and a left eye infection which had blurred her vision.

Pennetta was playing her first match in almost a month. She was in doubt until Friday because of an inflamed wrist injury from last month's Rogers Cup in Montreal, but claims to be fully recovered and is set to play Sunday's singles despite heavy bandaging.

Her job will look a lot easier against underperforming Flipkens.

``I have to look at the positive things,'' Flipkens said. ``Francesca played unbelievable. She didn't make any mistakes.''

Schiavone overwhelmed the inexperienced Flipkens from the start, taking the opening serve and never letting up in the first set.

Within a quarter of an hour, Schiavone had quieted the home crowd with a stunning all-around display of shot-making. She was broken once before clinching the first set in 23 minutes with a passing shot.

The second set was almost as one-sided with Schiavone perfecting her groove, while Flipkens kept making unforced errors and serving double faults.

``I did my job,'' Schiavone said.

Flipkens saved one match point before staging a brief comeback. She broke Schiavone, held serve and then earned a break point to trail only 5-4 _ but that was as far as it would go.

Flipkens netted an easy second serve from Schiavone and the Italian had won in just under an hour.

``The most important thing was to win the last point,'' Schiavone said.

Overall, Italy leads Belgium 6-0 in Fed Cup play. Belgium has one title from 2001, while Italy has never won the cup.