Day One: Kites Defeat Eagles on First Day of the Inaugural World Tennis League

• The Kites Become First Day Winners of inaugural World Tennis League 

• World Number One Iga Swiatek Defeats WTA Champ Caroline Garcia

• Felix Auger-Aliassime Bounces Back to Defeat Nick Kyrgios

 

Dubai, United Arab Emirates; 19th December 2022: The Kites were the first team to claim victory on the opening night of the World Tennis League on Monday as they staged a comeback 35-27 victory over The Eagles.

 

The tournament exploded into action as Nick Kyrgios fired an ace on the opening point, and partnering Bianca Andreescu he kept a grip on proceedings to defeat Holger Rune and Eugenie Bouchard (Kites) 6-2 6-3. After a comfortable opening set for The Eagles things tightened up in the second, and just one break of serve against Eugenie Bouchard to give her opponents a 5-3 lead settled the outcome.

 

The second match of the evening saw a clash between recent WTA Finals champion Caroline Garcia of The Eagles against world number one, WTA Player of the Year and ITF World Champion Iga Swiatek. In a high quality battle it was Swiatek who came out on top with a well-earned 6-3 6-4 victory to level the tie.

 

The deciding match between Nick Kyrgios and Felix Auger-Aliassime also produced great entertainment as Auger-Aliassime had to fight his way into the match after dropping the opening three games. But he rose well to the challenge and quickly levelled at 3-3 before going on to snatch the set 7-5. A break for 3-2 was then enough to secure a 7-5 6-3 victory for Auger-Aliassime and a 2-1 win for The Kites.

 

There are three matches in each of the six sessions, featuring a mixed doubles, a women's singles and men's singles. Teams get one point for each game they win, plus five bonus points for winning most games in a match. One point wins the game at deuce, there is no advantage scoring, and if sets are one set each a super tiebreak is played, first to 10. That tiebreak can be won by a single point margin. Finally, the team manager can call one timeout in each set.

 

Kites def Eagles 2-1

 

Bianca Andreescu/Nick Kyrgios (Eagles) def Holger Rune/Eugenie Bouchard (Kites) 6-2 6-3

Iga Swiatek (Kites) def Caroline Garcia (Eagles) 6-3 6-4

Felix Auger-Aliassime (Kites) def Nick Kyrgios (Eagles) 7-5 6-3

 

The Kites win 35 points, The Eagles win 27 points

 

20th December

Falcons v Hawks

Grigor Dimitrov/Paula Badosa v Dominic Thiem/Sorana Cirstea

Aryna Sabalenka v Elena Rybakina

Novak Djokovic v Alexander Zverev