Sabalenka's Heroics Not Enough For Her Team To Win Opening Tie At WTL
News
The opening tie of the 2024 World Tennis League was as exciting as it gets, but Aryna Sabalenka's wins were not enough for her team to emerge victorious.
In the first tie of the 2024 World Tennis League in Abu Dhabi, The Falcons took on The Hawks. The tie started with women's doubles, as Falcons' Elena Rybakina and Caroline Garcia took on Hawks' Mirra Andreeva and Aryna Sabalenka.
As expected, in a doubles match of four players that can hit the ball extremely well, the tie-break had to decide it, with Sabalenka and Andreeva winning the tie-break 7-5.
The World Tennis League is played in a one-set format, with four matches deciding the tie. All sets won are added up to determine the final score, with possible tie-breakers included, which was the case in this tie. Early on, however, it seemed like it wouldn't be.
Motivated Sabalenka, who was chosen as the WTA Player of the Year, took on Rybakina in the women's singles match, and the Belarusian player was completely outplaying her rival.
After five games player, the World No. 1 was up 5-0, and at 30-30 in the sixth game, she was only two points away from winning the match. Surprisingly, Rybakina was almost able to stage a comeback.
Sabalenka had a total of nine match points, but she couldn't use any. Rybakina saved two at 1-5, three at 2-5, one at 3-5, two at 4-5, and another one at 5-6. After all of that, only a tie-break decided the match between the two hard hitters.
It looked like Rybakina would complete the miraculous comeback when she led 3-1 in the tie-break, but Sabalenka turned it around, winning the tie-break 7-3 to win another match for her team. After it, she was clearly in a good mood when talking about her opponent's efforts.
"I was just telling myself you can not be that tough on Elena. She’s such a nice person. You cannot do that to her. Let’s be friendly, and get it to 5-all and then we'll see."
After these two matches, Sabalenka had no control over the reminder of the tie. First, her teammates Sumit Nagal and Jordan Thompson took on Andrey Rublev and Denis Shapovalov in the men's doubles match.
Thompson and Nagal found an inspired level late in the match, winning it 7-5 to give Team Hawks a 21-17 lead with only men's singles left to decide.
Rublev and Thompson stayed on the court, battling it out for the overall win, with Thompson having a four-game lead, which his team and he himself built ahead of the deciding match.
Rublev, however, proved to be the most valuable player for his team. The Russian first won the match 7-5, bringing the overall deficit down to two games, with the scoreboard showing 24-26 from his point of view.
With this scoreline, it was first to 27 games won, meaning that Thompson had to win one before Rublev would win two and force a match tie-break.
The Australian player couldn't handle the pressure, as his opponent won two consecutive games to force a match tie-break, with the score locked at 26-26.
In the match tie-break, Rublev was the better player once again, winning it 10-6 to win the tie for his team and also earn two additional points for winning the match tie-break, meaning The Falcons beat The Hawks 29-26.
