World Tennis League thriller in Dubai sees Hawks defeat Falcons on second day

DUBAI: The Hawks staged a stunning fight back to defeat the Falcons in a thrilling second evening of the World Tennis League here on Tuesday.

The Falcons’ Grigor Dimitrov and Paula Badosa defeated the Hawks’ Dominic Thiem and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 5-7, 6-3, 10-4. The Hawks’ Elena Rybakina then recovered from a frustrating opening set to defeat the Falcons’ Aryna Sabalenka 0-6, 6-1, 10-6 and level the tie. Taking the unlikely win for the Hawks, Alexander Zverev then stunned the Falcons’ Novak Djokovic 6-3, 6-4.

The Hawks needed two chances to take the opening set of the mixed doubles, with Thiem failing to serve it out at 5-4 before Badosa dropped her serve at 5-5 to leave Pavlyuchenkova to close out the set instead. Just one break of Thiem’s serve at 1-0 in the second set was enough to give the Falcons the set, and they then swept to a commanding 5-0 lead in the super tiebreak to lead the tie 1-0.

The Falcons then appeared to be heading for victory — with Djokovic still to play and the hot favorite against an opponent who had not played for over six months due to injury — as Sabalenka cruised to a 6-0 opening set lead over Rybakina. But in a sensational turnaround, the 2022 Wimbledon champion claimed the second set 6-1 and then edged the super tiebreak 10-6 to level the tie.

Zverev faced a formidable challenge against Djokovic and began in the worst possible way by double-faulting three times as he was broken in the very first game. But he levelled at 2-2 and then earned a second crucial break to lead 5-3 and serve out the set. After an early exchange of breaks in the second set, Zverev broke again to lead 3-2, which then proved to be decisive.

“I knew I had to play the best tennis I played the last seven