The Indian Aces suffered a shock 20-30 defeat to the UAE Royals on the third day of the International Tennis Premier League in Tokyo on Sunday. The Aces lost the first sets in regulation time and the fifth set in the overtime.
Thomas Johansson gave the Royals a quick 6-3 lead after defeating Mark Philippoussis in the legends singles set. Martina Hingis’ 6-4 win in the second, women’s singles set over Kirsten Flipkens helped maintain the Royals’ lead.
With all hope hinged on the Indian mixed doubles team of Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna to restore the imbalance, the Indian pair conceded a vital break of serve to the Royals’ team of Hingis and Pablo Cuevas. The break was enough to give the Swiss-Uruguayan team a 6-4 win in the third set.
The Royals’ penchant for getting service breaks in crucial moments of the match continued in the fourth set, with Tomas Berdych holding onto a one break cushion to win the men’s singles set 6-3 against Lopez.
The men’s doubles set was the only set to be played without any breaks of serve. Bopanna and Lopez won the set 6-5 in the shoot-out to defeat the Royals’ team of Cuevas and Daniel Nestor. However, since the tournament rules state that the team winning the match has to win the final set, overtime had to be enforced. In the ensuing overtime, Cuevas and Nestor equalled the fifth set score at 6-6 to give the Royals their second win in Tokyo.
Away from the on-court action, there was additional setback for the Aces, with Eugenie Bouchard withdrawing from the IPTL this year.
In the last match of the Tokyo leg, Singapore Slammers defeated the Japan Warriors 27-23. The Slammers’ win ensured that they won’t be returning home to Singapore to host the next leg of the tournament, empty-handed.
Co-incidentally, the match also went into overtime as the first, with Kei Nishikori leading Nick Kyrgios 6-3 in the fifth set and the Warriors trailing 20-26. Needing to win six more games on the trot, Nishikori could only manage to win three more, which saw the Slammers winning the match despite Kyrgios losing the set 4-9.
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