Indian Aces remain top despite first loss
Defending champions Indian Aces were handed their first defeat of this season's IPTL as Philippine Mavericks came from behind to win a closely contested match 25-24 at the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila on Tuesday. Despite the result, there were no changes at the top of the table with Aces retaining the top spot, while Mavericks closed down the gap between them and the league leaders.
Fabrice Santoro faced his first loss of the tournament when former Australian tennis star Mark Philippoussis broke his serve to win the men's legend's tie 6-4.
Rafael Nadal continued the winning start to his IPTL career when he teamed up with Ivan Dodig to defeat Mavericks' all-French team of Richard Gasquet and Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-4. The match was delicately poised at 10-10 when the Indian pair of Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza dominated Treat Huey and Serena Williams in the mixed doubles' tie to win it 6-3.
Serena Williams though, stamped her class in the singles' tie against Samantha Stosur and won it 6-3 to put the match back on a knife edge at 19-19. The singles match between Milos Raonic and Rafael Nadal was the deciding tie and it turned out to be one of the best matches in the league so far.
Raonic dominated the early proceedings with his booming forehands and he managed to break Nadal's serve to take a 3-1 lead. However, Nadal broke back and both players would go on to exchange service breaks one more time.
With both players tied at 5-5, and the teams at 24-24, the match went into a deciding shootout. It was a race to seven, which Raonic won 7-6, and with it the match for the Philippine Mavericks.
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