Rybakina beats Sabalenka after losing first set 0-6

It seemed that Elena Rybakina wouldn't help her team in their opening tie at the 2022 World Tennis League, but she managed to pull off an incredible comeback.

The Hawks met with The Falcons in the second tie at the 2022 World Tennis League in Dubai. In the first tie, The Kites beat The Eagles after Iga Swiatek and Felix Auger-Aliassime completed their team's comeback.

If Rybakina's Hawks want to win against The Falcons, they will need a comeback as well. In the first match of the tie, Dominic Thiem and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova lost to Grigor Dimitrov and Paula Badosa.

To start her team's comeback, the 2022 Wimbledon finalist had to beat Sabalenka. Supported by her good friend Paula Badosa from the bench, Sabalenka was very effective on the break points.

She took advantage of the no-ad format that the event uses as she had four break points in the first set, out of which three were on the deuce, and used three of those.

Thanks to that, she managed to win the first set 6-0 in just 20 minutes, losing only four points on her serve. However, the second set was much different.

Rybakina improved her serve massively. She hit four aces and 90% of points after her first serve. On the other hand, Sabalenka made four double faults and helped her opponent to get two breaks and win the second set 6-1 to force a deciding super tie-break.

The Belarusian got the opening mini-break as she led 2-0, but she then lost five points in a row and found herself in a three-point deficit. The score was then tied once more at 5-5, but since then, Rybakina dominated and won the super tie-break 10-6.

In the last match of the tie between The Falcons and The Hawks, Novak Djokovic will play against Alexander Zverev. Both teams need every game won, thanks to the special format. The Falcons lead only by two games, 20-18.