Singapore Slammers defeated Philippine Mavericks 26-24 in an evenly-contested match of the International Premier Tennis League in Kobe, Japan, on Thursday.
Mavericks won the men's doubles and men's legends singles rubber, but the Slammers clinched the women's singles, mixed doubles and men's singles to come out trumps.
The Mavericks featured Serena Williams and Milos Raonic, who joined Mark Philippoussis, Richard Gasquet, Edouard Roger-Vasselin, Treat Huey, Ajla Tomljanovic and Jarmila Gajdosova.
Serena ended up on the losing side today, going down 4-6 to Karolina Pliskova.
A victory already under their belt, the Slammers looked set for the evening from the first set.
It was a match that tossed between 6s and 4s with all five sets reading the same scoreline, favouring one of the two teams till 2 sets all, with Nick Kyrgios closing it for the Slammers against Milos Raonic in the last set.
"Not only did I come prepared for the IPTL, I also have an 'IPTL special edition haircut! It's great to be playing in the IPTL, I've heard wonderful things about it from players on the tour these past few months, the fun and the motivating parts with the rest of the team members, and I was really
looking forward to it," Raonic said after the match.
"I'm looking forward to playing tennis in new markets, and it's so good for the sport. Kobe, Manila, Delhi, Dubai, Singapore – all of these are markets that I've never been to before, and I'm really looking forward to it," he added.
Results:
Mark Philippoussis (Mavericks) bt Carlos Moya (Slammers) 6-4
Karolina Pliskova (Slammers) bt Serena Williams (Mavericks) 6-4
Richard Gasquet & Edouard Roger-Vasselin (Mavericks) bt Marcelo Melo & Dustin Brown (Slammers) 6-4
Marcelo Melo & Belinda Bencic (Slammers) bt Roger-Vasselin & Jarmila Gajdosova (Mavericks) 6-4
Nick Kyrgios (Slammers) bt Milos Raonic (Mavericks) 6-4.
