After Iga Swiatek and Hubert Hurkacz put some points on the board for the Hawks, Mirra Andreeva and Sofia Kenin surprisingly beat the Pole and Caroline Garcia in the second match.
The first match in this Hawks-Eagles tie at the 2023 World Tennis League was a pretty strong win for the Hawks as Iga Swiatek and Hubert Hurkacz easily won.
That put them in a great position for the rest of the tie, but things got interesting after Swiatek and Garcia were surprisingly beaten by Kenin and Andreeva in the second match.
It was a pretty confident 6-4 win for the American-Russian combo, making the overall score 10-8. That gives the Eagles a chance to win this matchup due to the unique format of this competition. The event has teams of 4 players, with each tie between teams featuring five matches.
Three of those are doubles, while two are singles, and the games are what matters, not necessarily the outcome. Every game counts as one point, so scorelines like 6-0 and 6-1 are almost like cheat codes if a team can get them.
This wasn't that but winning it 6-4 was important to close the deficit from the first match. When it comes to the match, it was a surprise to see a doubles pairing that is weaker on paper actually win.
They won because they were actually better, at least when it mattered. Both teams pretty much dominated on serve, but the crucial difference was that Andreeva and Kenin used the break chance they had while their opponents did not.
That's the only difference, and it was enough to win the match. With three matches remaining, the score is now 10-8 for the Hawks as they remain in the driving seat, but this is not a huge deficit for the Eagles to come back from, especially with Daniil Medvedev expected to take the court soon.
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