BENGALURU: Legends of the game will descend on to the Garden City as the Champions Tennis League makes a two-day stopover at the KSLTA Stadium.
Pune Marathas, who defeated Hyderabad Aces 26-25 on Tuesday, will play Bangalore Raptors on Thursday. Aces, who beat Raptors 27-25 on Monday, will be in action the following day.
The team winning the highest number of games of a single-set match wins the tie. There is no 2-point advantage, one point is the decider and as such there is no ‘deuce’ at 40-40. The winner of the next point gets the game. The tie-breaker is applied at 5-5 with the best of nine points. Thus all matches are one-set affairs with five sets of the five games being considered as one match.
Teams with the highest number of games won in the 13 matches are placed above with the top two in each group playing the final. Each tie consists of five matches: Legends, men’s singles, women’s singles, mixed doubles, men’s doubles. The Davis Cup format of reverse singles is replaced with the legends and mixed doubles with two singles (men and women) and the doubles. Consequently, there is no women’s doubles.
Pat Cash, who was part of the Legends Tour tennis championship in 2000, comes back to Bangalore for a different venture. Cash had then conquered the legendary Swede Bjorn Borg 6-4, 5-7, 10-7 in a thriller. He will play Thomas Enqvist, another Swede, 14 years later at the same venue.
Venus Williams also returns to the same arena where she appeared in 2008 in the WTA Tour event. Venus takes on Poland’s in-form Agnieszka Radwanska. She will renew her rivalry with Martina Hingis when Hyderabad come calling on Friday. The Swiss miss enjoys a 11-10 career score over Venus in tennis. She beat Venus at Hyderabad and Venus will surely be keen to settle scores. Their clashes were termed as “rivalry for the ages” and they are to be on view again.
Rusedski Injured
Chandigarh: A foot injury has put Punjab Marshalls’ legend Greg Rusedski out of action in the ongoing Champions Tennis League. Leander Paes will now be playing three sets in the remaining two group matches, the first of which will be played against the Mumbai Tennis Masters at the Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association Stadium on Thursday.