Doubles Play Leads Warriors Past Royals in IPTL
The Legendari Japan Warriors notched its first win of the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) season on Thursday, coming from behind to down the OBI UAE Royals 24-21 at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi.
The lead thanks to Royals took the earlySerb Ana Ivanovic, who downed Croat Mirjana Lucic-Baroni 6-2 in the Women’s Singles set. The lead was padded when Goran Ivanisevic defeated Thomas Enqvist 6-4 in the Men’s Legends set to give the Royals a 12-6 lead early on.
But the Warriors, bidding for its first victory of the season, answered back in the Men’s Doubles match. Leander Paes & Pierre-Hugues Herbert paired up to down Tomas Berdych & Daniel Nestor 6-3 to trim the Royals lead.
Herbert then notched a crucial victory in the Men’s Singles contest, knocking off Berdych 6-4 to pull the Warriors within a game of evening the score.
And once again, it was Herbert who came up clutch for the Warriors. The Frenchman teamed with Lucic-Baroni, and the two defeated Nestor & Kristina Mladenovic 6-2 in the Mixed Doubles set to seal the win for the Warriors as the team notched its first win.
“It’s great to go out there and win it for the team, it’s wonderful that we notched our first win in the IPTL today,” said Paes. “Herbert was a brilliant partner to have and he played some fantastic tennis today in all three sets. Being two sets down and then winning the men’s doubles gave us the momentum that we needed.”
In Thursday’s second match, the Micromax Indian Aces got back on the winning track with a 30-12 win over the Philippine Mavericks.
