Dubai: The Indian juggernaut continued to roll in the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) with a swift 25-18 win over the bottom-placed Legendari Japan Warriors in the opening match of the Dubai leg at the Dubai Tennis Stadium on Monday.
Coming in for the penultimate leg of this five-team competition with the best record of six wins from seven, the Micromax Indian Aces stuttered at the start when Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna went down 4-6. The defending champions, however, went on improving as the encounter progressed.
Playing for the first time together, Kirsten Flipkens and Pierre-Hugues Herbert took their chances and managed the only break of the match in the third game on Mirza’s serve to give the Japanese the lead at 6-4.
“This competition is not just about playing tennis but also about having fun out there. I am glad that we could win a competitive match the first time we came together as a pair,” Herbert said after his match.
“Honestly, we didn’t expect to win this one as they [Bopanna and Mirza] are such a strong pair. But we took our chances and it all paid off in the end,” he added.
However after that initial euphoria, it turned out to be a rather one-sided encounter with Agnieszka Radwanska breezing past Mirjana Lucic-Baroni 6-1 to help the Indians lead for the first time 10-7.
Former Dubai champion Fabrice Santoro, who doubled up as coach-cum-captain for the Indian Aces, then made short work of Thomas Enqvist 6-0. The high point of the evening came in the men’s doubles when Bopanna and Ivan Dodig teamed up to win 6-5 against Leander Paes and Herbert.
Following a break on Paes’ serve in the fourth to lead 3-1, Dodig and Bopanna suddenly had to put up with a gritty fightback by the Indo-French pair as they broke back to send the match into a shoot-out that the Indian Aces won 7-2 to give their team an overall lead of 22-12 with only the last men’s singles to be played.
“This is our first time together here and he [Bopanna] was amazing out there. We felt great on court and all credit should go to our leader [Santoro]. He is such an amazing guy. He gets everything organized for us and we don’t even feel any stress. But the best is that he has cultivated a great team spirit among us all,” Dodig said.
In the fifth and final match, Philipp Kohlscreiber of the Warriors upset the form book with a swift 6-3 win over Bernard Tomic, who was playing his first match of the IPTL in place of marquee player Rafael Nadal.
The match, though inconsequential, witnessed some exciting moments as Kohlscreiber registered only his second win against Australia’s top-ranked player with a 25-18 result for the Warriors. However, that could not stop the Indian Aces from their seventh win from eight.
Due to the odd number of teams in the league this year, the Legendari Japan Warriors will get an off day on Tuesday but the highlight of the evening will be the clash between Roger Federer and Andy Murray that will bring down the curtain on Day Two of the Dubai round of the IPTL.
