"Falconry" hunting: Rublev's team took the title at the World Tennis League
The World Tennis League exhibition tennis tournament ended in Abu Dhabi. In the final the teams of Russians Andrey Rublev and Mirra Andreeva met - in a tight struggle Rublev's Falcons were slightly stronger. Also in the matches participated in the first racket of the world Belarusian Arina Sobolenko and representative of Kazakhstan Elena Rybakina.
Hawks' march
The final, like all previous meetings between the teams at this tournament, consisted of four one-set matches - one individual match each for men and women, as well as two doubles matches, and the duos could be mixed. The overall victory was calculated on the basis of the total number of games won by each team. In the decisive game Falcons and Hawks met. Andrei Rublev, Elena Rybakina, Denis Shapovalov and Caroline Garcia played for the former, while Jordan Thompson, Arina Sobolenko, Sumit Nagal and Mirra Andreeva played for the latter.
The final began with the women's doubles, where Andreeva and Sobolenko defeated their opponents on a tie-break (7:6) to give their team a minimal lead. The game lasted 48 minutes, becoming the longest in the final confrontation. Andreeva stayed at Etihad Arena for the next match. Her opponent was Elena Rybakina. The 17-year-old Russian brightly outplayed the world number six (6:2), bringing the Hawks' lead to five points (13:8). Mirra took only 28 minutes to win the match.
Andreeva had a great tournament despite its unofficial status. The young Russian did not lose any of her six matches. In the group stage, she won three matches against Sobolenko and also defeated Italy's Yasmin Paolini (6-4), who is ranked sixth in the WTA rankings.
They snatched victory in the last two matches
Next, the men took to the court and dramatically changed the course of the final - Rublev and Shapovalov defeated Thompson and Nagal (6-2) in doubles. Only one point remained from the Hawks' confident advantage, and before the final game between Rublev and Nagal, the Falcons had a better chance of overall triumph - after all, the Russian is a much more high-profile tennis player than the 98th-ranked Indian.
Andrei did not fail - he gave Nagal only one game (6:1) and brought his team a victory with a total score of 20:16. After the group stage, the Hawks were also the best with 68 points.
- I wasn't thinking about anything, I just had a chance to play singles," Rublev said after the winning match. - We had a good pairing, so there was a chance to rehabilitate on points. When I went to play, I knew I had to take the set. I started to win, I felt calm and relieved. And I won. It's still a good feeling - I did my best, I tried my best, we managed to win, and that's the most important thing.
The World Tennis League team exhibition tournament was held for the third time: its two-time champions were Elena Rybakina and Andrey Rublev. The former Russian won here for the first time in 2022, playing on the same team as Alexander Zverev, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Dominic Thiem.
Russians Andreeva and Rublev participated for the second year in a row - in 2023 they were in the same team and became the strongest. Daniil Medvedev played with them then - he was supposed to come this year, but a few days before the start the organizers announced that Daniil would miss the tournament.
