After winning their first match at the World Tennis League on Thursday, Paula Badosa and Aryna Sabalenka were beaten today by Elena Rybakina and Sorana Cirstea.
It's the second day of the World Tennis League and like yesterday we started with an interesting doubles match. There was a lot of firepower on the court with four really competent tennis players and it was a pretty interesting match.
Let's refresh your memory about the format of this event. It's quite unique with players paired up in teams of four with each tie between teams consisting of 5 matches. This was the first one as 3 are doubles and two are singles.
Each game won in each match counts as one point which then gets compared at the end of all 5 matches. The team with the most wins the overall tie. So as Rybakina and Cirstea won this match 7-6, it means that the Falcons are leading the Kites 7-6 after this first match.
They'll win the tie if they have the lead after all five matches. So when it comes to this match, it was not the best from Sabalenka and Badosa. They looked pretty strong yesterday but ran into issues early, having to save some break points.
Rybakina and her teammate broke for the 3-1 lead but then lost the break immediately, which made for a pretty exciting finish. We ended up in a tiebreak, which is about as close as possible. Neither team could find a breakthrough as they both dominated on the serve in previous games.
Rybakina and Cirstea took an early 2-0 lead and then went on to outplay them for the rest of the tiebreak, winning it 7-5 in the end. A good performance by Cirstea and Rybakina as the Falcons hope to win today's tie as well.
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