Kastles Win WTT for Fifth Consecutive Year

The Washington Kastles defended their title by beating the Austin Aces and winning the WTT for the fifth consecutive year. The stadium was full, there was a lot of energy, people were chanting “Refuse to Lose!” and that’s exactly what the Kastles did… refused to lose.

The first match was mixed doubles and the Kastles Martina Hingis and Leander Paes played the Aces Teymuraz Gabashvili and Alla Kudryavtseva. The Austin team simply could not take the pace or unbelievable chemistry that Wimbledon winner Hingis and Paes possessed on the court. The Aces team lost in a grueling 5-2 match.

The second match was women’s double featuring Washington’s Hingis and Anastasia Radionova (the current WTT MVP) against Kudryavtseva and Elina Svitolina. The Kastles came out hungry to win the match and were up 2-0 until the Aces started using better placement and strategy; forcing the Kastles to make errors. The score quickly became 4-4. It was an exciting tiebreaker, with the Kastles clinching the win in a very evenly and closely-played 5-3, taking the match 5-4.

Even though the Kastles won the last two matches, the overall team score was only 10-7 in favor of Washington. This is the beauty of team tennis: there is excitement until the very end and one must constantly be on one’s toes.

The third match was the Kastles Leander Paes and Sam Querrey versus Gabashvili and Jarmere Jenkins.

Querrey’s serve was just too strong and many aces were made throughout the match. Austin’s Gabashvili is a real competitor and a very hard hitter; he made this match a very close one. The Kastles were up 4-3 when Jenkins hit a huge passing shot down the line but ultimately just couldn’t compete with Paes and Querrey. At the end of the match, Paes jumped onto Querrey because he was so excited. There seemed to be something personal going on between Paes and Gabashvili because there was a lot of “smack talk” during the match. Paes was very obviously excited to take the win.

The fourth match was the men’s singles between Querrey and Gabashvili. This was one of the best matches overall as these two men are power houses. There were multiple aces on both sides, huge baseline shots and not a lot of error. Another tiebreaker was played in this evenly set match and the Kastles took the tiebreaker in an exciting win 5-4.

The final singles match was the most exciting match with the Kastles Madison Brengle up against Aces Svitolina. The Aces were up 4-3 at one point but the overall match score was Kastles 23-17. Svitolina became very emotional during it, continuing to look at her coach for support. She even shed a tear during one of her points from disappointment. The coach eventually sent word through another player during the timeout and the next thing fans knew, Svitolina just came out of whatever funk with which she had been dealing. She came out to win. The Ukrainian native started hitting huge winners with great ball placement. The match came down to a tiebreaker and Svitolina ended up winning it.

This is where team tennis gets exciting because even though the overall score was Kastles 23-18, the Aces won the final match. Because of that, they had to go into overtime to determine the winner of the next game. Whoever did this would take the match.

Washington’s Brengle is a closer. She brought out her killer instinct and just was too big to beat. The stadium was alive and probably she fed off this. The 25-year-old American player didn’t even let Svitolina take one point in the game she so dominated the match and the Kastles won.

“This is what tennis should be all about,” legend and co-founder of WTT, Billy Jean King said in an interview after the match. “The energy… the kids… families coming out… I would like to see more of this with tennis in the future.”