DUBAI: The Hawks staged a stunning fight back to defeat the Falcons in a thrilling second evening of the World Tennis League here on Tuesday.
The Falcons’ Grigor Dimitrov and Paula Badosa defeated the Hawks’ Dominic Thiem and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 5-7, 6-3, 10-4. The Hawks’ Elena Rybakina then recovered from a frustrating opening set to defeat the Falcons’ Aryna Sabalenka 0-6, 6-1, 10-6 and level the tie. Taking the unlikely win for the Hawks, Alexander Zverev then stunned the Falcons’ Novak Djokovic 6-3, 6-4.
The Hawks needed two chances to take the opening set of the mixed doubles, with Thiem failing to serve it out at 5-4 before Badosa dropped her serve at 5-5 to leave Pavlyuchenkova to close out the set instead. Just one break of Thiem’s serve at 1-0 in the second set was enough to give the Falcons the set, and they then swept to a commanding 5-0 lead in the super tiebreak to lead the tie 1-0.
The Falcons then appeared to be heading for victory — with Djokovic still to play and the hot favorite against an opponent who had not played for over six months due to injury — as Sabalenka cruised to a 6-0 opening set lead over Rybakina. But in a sensational turnaround, the 2022 Wimbledon champion claimed the second set 6-1 and then edged the super tiebreak 10-6 to level the tie.
Zverev faced a formidable challenge against Djokovic and began in the worst possible way by double-faulting three times as he was broken in the very first game. But he levelled at 2-2 and then earned a second crucial break to lead 5-3 and serve out the set. After an early exchange of breaks in the second set, Zverev broke again to lead 3-2, which then proved to be decisive.
“I knew I had to play the best tennis I played the last seven months, which is not that difficult,” said Zverev. “I’m happy to get my first win in a long time. I’m doing okay from the looks of it. I’m just trying to get healthy and better every day.”
There are three matches in each of the six sessions, featuring mixed doubles, women’s singles and men’s singles. Teams get one point for each game they win, plus five bonus points for winning most games in a match. One point wins the game at deuce, there is no advantage scoring, and if sets are one set each a super tiebreak is played, first to 10. That tiebreak can be won by a single point margin. Finally, the team manager can call one timeout in each set.
