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IPTL: Aces sweep Manila leg with victory over Royals

Gael Monfils put on a show while winning his two sets as the Micromax Indian Aces completed their romp of the first leg of the Coca-Cola International Premier Tennis League with a 28-20 win over the UAE Royals.

Kristina Mladenovic actually gave the Royals the early lead, surviving a late surge by Ana Ivanovic to take the women’s singles set, 6-4.

Mladenovic, who thrashed the Singapore Slammers’ Danile Hantuchova Saturday night, 6-1, was comfortably ahead at 5-1 before the crowd favorite Ivanovic won the next three games, breaking the Frenchwoman in the eighth game when the Aces called for and won a Happiness Power Point and then holding serve in the ninth to inch to within one at 4-5. But Mladenovic closed the deal in the 10th game to win the set 6-4.

Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna fought back for the Aces in the mixed doubles set, taking on Mladenovic and Nenad Zimonjic. The Indian pair raced to a 5-1 lead before allowing the Royals to win the next two games and come to within 3-5. But that was the closest the Royals would get as the Aces wrapped it up in the ninth game and take the overall lead10-9.

Monfils then teamed with Bopanna as the pair faced Marin Cilic and Zimonjic in the men’s doubles set in a tight affair. The Aces broke serve twice in the first six games, and that proved to be the difference as they took the set 6-4 to pad their lead to 16-13.

Monfils then captured the men's singles set completed a sweep of all three of his sets following his wins over Andy Murray on Saturday and Lleyton Hewitt on Friday. With the Frenchman up 4-3, the Aces sent in Maleek Jaziri for Cilic, but the move made little difference as Monfils won two of the last three games to win 6-3 and make it 22-16 overall.

Fabrice Santoro then completed the victory with a 6-4 win over Goran Ivanisevic in the past champions’ set.

With the win, the Aces swept all three of their matches and collected 12 points heading into the second leg in Singapore which starts on December 2. The Royals, who entered the match also unbeaten, picked up two overall points for scoring 20 points in the match and now have a total of 10 points.

Teams pick up four points for winning a five-set match, two points for losing but scoring at least 20, and one point for scoring less than 20.