Casper Ruud took on Taylor Fritz at the World Tennis League in Abu Dhabi and played an amazing set, giving his team a fighting chance.
Before this match, Ruud's team was behind 19-12, which meant that he needed to deliver a stellar performance to give his team a fighting chance to win the overall tie. It's because of the unique format explained below.
The exhibition event features a unique format: Players are paired up in teams of four, and each tie between teams consists of five matches. Each match is basically one set, and three of the five are doubles, with the remaining ones being singles.
Each game won in each match counts as one point, which matters most. At the end of each tie, the winning team is the one that has the most points.
Now, obviously, because of how math works, the team that wins 3 out of the five likely wins the tie unless the other team manages to win dominantly 6-0 6-0 or something similar like that.
Ruud certainly had to do a lot of work to pull back the 7-point deficit of his team, and he took it quite seriously. He opened the match with an early break against Fritz, who already stood on the court in doubles and delivered a win for his team.
Ruud then took another break, getting to a 4-0 lead, which was huge for his team because they needed every single game. Eventually, Fritz stabilized enough to win a game and make it 4-1. Losing it 6-0 would have been catastrophic for the Falcons after they started so well earlier today.
Ruud kept applying pressure and actually broke Fritz once more to win the match 6-1 and make the Falcons' lead only 20-18. The next match between Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina will definitely settle the score.
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