For the second year, the World Tennis League tournament took place in Abu Dhabi, where tennis players from different countries formed a team called Eagles, Falcons, Hawks and Kites. This time the Eagles won.
Last year, the first tournament was won by the Hawks, whose top rackets were Jelena Rõbakina and Alexander Zverev. Initially, Anett Kontaveit was also supposed to be part of this team, but due to a reason already known to us – a back injury – she withdrew from this tournament, and Anastassia Pavlyuchenkova, who replaced her, entered the winning team in this way, tennisnet.ee reports.
In both years the four teams faced each other first in the group stage and then the top two in the final. But in one respect, the rules have changed this year. If last year the match consisted of three two-set games (fast final game with 10 points in 1:1), this year it consisted of five one-set games. Women’s and men’s doubles matches, which did not take place in the 2022 World League tournament, have been added.
The regulation differs from a regular match by another provision: not winnings, but winnings were counted in the final result. In as many as three group matches, the matches were drawn, even though one team had won three matches and the other two. In this case, after the last game (both women’s and men’s), a quick final game of the 10-point game was played. For example, in the very first match, Rõbakina (Falcons) lost to Iga Swiatek (Hawks) 4:6, but the score of the matches was then equal to 24:24, and Rõbakina instead won the final decisive match, 10:8 . .
In terms of composition, the Hawks team seemed to be the strongest, consisting of Swiatek, Caroline Garcia, Casper Ruud and Hubert Hurkacz. The ranking total of these four players was the lowest. But in reality they achieved only one victory in the subgroup, and the Kites (in the team Arina Sabalenka, Paula Badosa, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Grigor Dimitrov and Lloyd Harris) and the Eagles (Daniil Medvedev, Andrei Rubljov, Sofia Kenin, Mirra Andrejeva) advanced. The latter could be considered a Russian team, because Kenin, representing the USA, was born in Moscow and her parents are Russian.
While the Kites defeated the Eagles in the subgroup and won the subgroup against the Eagles thanks to the better gap between the games, in the final the Eagles fell behind in a much more important match. While in the subgroup Kites had a decisive victory over Sabalenka Andrejeva, in the final Kenin was the opponent of the Belarusian, who surprised Sabalenka with a 6:4 victory and put the Eagles ahead 25:19 (3:1 victory ). Then Dimitrov should have beaten Rublyov 6-0 to equalize, but the Bulgarian won 6-3. With the Eagles leading 28:25, extra time took place, where both Dimitrov and Rubljov won serve and the Eagles were declared the winners 29:26.
2023-12-26 09:37:00
the-world-tennis-league-tournament-which-turned-out-to-be-a-draw-was-won-by-the-russian-team-tennis
#World #Tennis #League #tournament #turned #draw #won #Russian #team #Tennis