Indian Aces continued their winning run after enduring another comfortable outing against Japan Warriors here in the second edition of International Premier Tennis league on Friday.
Indian tennis players Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna made a dream start by going 4-0 up in their mixed doubles game against Mirjana lucic-Pierre-Hugues Herbert.
The Indian pair broke them twice and looked to be running away with the set, but lucic-Herbert broke them back and went on to win four of the next five games to make it a tight contest.
However, the local pair managed to hold their nerve to see out the set 6-4, to give the head start for Indian Aces.
Next, US Open champion Agnieszka Radwanska took the court to a loud reception. However, she did not enjoy the best of the starts as lucic broke her in the second game to go 2-0 up.
But, a resurgent Radwanska broke her immediately in the very next game as she went on to win six games in a row.
At 4-2, Warriors replaced lucic with Kurumi Nara. However, the substitution yielded little result as the Pole broke Nara in her very first service game without even losing a point to demonstrate her total domination.
Radwanska won the next game of her serve to give Aces 12-6 lead in the match.
The Indian team did have a slight blip in the next outing — men's doubles — when Bopanna-Ivan Dodig were up against another Indian in the form of leander Paes and Herbert.
In a neck to neck contest Aces broke in the seventh game to take the initiative, but Warriors broke back immediately in the subsequent game to level the score.
The tie-breaker was neither different as Paes-Herbert mounted a 5-2 lead. But, Bopanna-Dodig won the next four points to set up the set point.
However, Paes-Herbert held the nerve to to save it as well as win the subsequent point to secure the tie-breaker 7-6 and claimed the set 6-5. Aces resumed their usual service in the next set — legend's singles — when Fabrice Santoro defeated Thomas Enqvist 6-3 to seal the match 23-15. In the final game however Herbert restored some parity by beating Dodig 6-3 to make it a respectable 26-21.
Slammers MOVE THIRD
Singapore Slammers had a comfortable day against Philippine Mavericks in IPTl by winning all the five sets to beat them 30-22 here on Friday.
Former French Open champion Carlos Moya got the Slammers to a great start by winning a thrilling contest against Mark Philippoussis 6-4 in the men's legends category.
The mixed doubles was an even closer affair as there wasn't much to separate between Karolina Pliskova-Dustin Brown and Jarmila Gajdosova-Treat Huey.
With both failing to break the other, the set went into a tiebreaker after 5-5. Pliskova-Brown stormed to a 5-0 lead and from then on they had little trouble in securing the tie-breaker as they sealed it 7-2.
In the women's singles, Belinda Bencic neither had any trouble as she successfully claimed three break points and lost a break herself against Ajla Tomljanovic to see out the set 6-3, taking Slammers to a 18-12 lead over Mavericks.
With an uphill task in their hands, Mavericks did put up a good fight in the men's doubles.
Huey/ Edouard Roger-Vasselin played neck to neck with Nick Kyrgios/ Marcelo Melo. With both breaking each other once, the set went to a tie-breaker at 5-5.
Kyrgios/ Melo ran away with it by taking a 6-3 lead. Mavericks did win the next two points but, Slammers managed to see out the tie-breaker 7-5 and thereby extended their lead to 24-17.
With Mavericks virtually out of the contest by the time men's singles took place, Roger-Vasselin did not let the disappoint bother him as he produced a commanding performance against Kyrgios. However, Kyrgios won the game 7-2 in the tie-breaker.