New Delhi: Manila Mavericks beat the UAE Royals 27-24 in the late International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) match at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Arena here on Sunday.
Manila Mavericks got an early lead with Mark Philippoussis winning against UAE Royals’ Goran Ivanisevic 6-3.
Royals reduced the margin in the next match, with Marin Cilic prevailing over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-5 after a shootout. The match was evenly contested, but Cilic kept his nerve to eke out the narrow win in the shootout.
Mavericks then extended their lead, winning the men’s doubles match 6-5 after a shootout. Royals fielded world number one Novak Djokovic alongside doubles specialist Nenad Zimonjic to put pressure on the Mavericks duo of Daniel Nestor and Tsonga.
The UAE pair were on the backfoot initially, trailing 3-5, but fought back valiantly to square the contest at 5-5. But they couldn’t maintain that momentum in the shootout.
Mavericks’ mixed doubles duo of Nestor and Kirsten Flipkens then totally outplayed Zimonjic and Kristina Mladenovic 6-2 to give the team a comfortable lead of seven games (23-16) going into the last match of the tie, where Caroline Wozniacki took on Flipkens.
Wozniacki went ahead 2-0 and, after a brief fightback by Flipkens, won 8-4 — but it wasn’t enough to win the tie.
