Aryna Sabalenka stepped up with the tie on the line and bested teenage phenom Mirra Andreeva to give her team the win.
After three doubles and one singles match, the score was pretty even as the Kites led the Eagles only by one point. It meant that Mirra Andreeva could win it for the Eagles if she bested Aryna Sabalenka, which would be a massive comeback as they trailed 12-7 after two matches.
Andrey Rublev delivered a crucial win for the Eagles over Grigor Dimitrov, and the doubles win by him and Daniil Medvedev also helped. The format made it so Andreeva needed a specific score to complete it the comeback of her team.
The exhibition event features a unique format where players are paired up in teams of four players, as each tie has 5 matches. Each match is just your average tennis set with no special rules. Three of the five matches are doubles matches. They come first, and then we have two singles.
Each game won basically counts as one point. At the end of each tie, the winning team is the one that has the most points. Obviously, due to the wide variety of possible tennis scores, there can be some interesting instances.
For example, Casper Ruud beat Taylor Fritz 6-1 earlier today, and it nearly turned around that whole tie despite the American's team dominating the whole day.
Andreeva tried her best, but slowly the overpowering nature of Sabalenka's game proved too much for the young Russian. The Belarusian took a 5-2 lead, and from there she had a pretty easy time finishing off the match 6-2.
The final score was 6-3 for Sabalenka, who secured the win for her team. The final score was 27-22 for the Kites against the Eagles. Sabalenka won both the singles and doubles matches she played.
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