Sunday was Day 3 and the final day of the DraftKings All American Team Cup. Team Stars were down 9-3 and needed to have a big day to have a chance at pulling off an impressive comeback.
With that in mind let’s get to the action, as we hadfour more amazing matches on the schedule. The first match on court was Sam Querrey, who wanted to finish his weekend with a win, vs Kevin King, who replaced Rielly Opelka after the tall talent pulled out due to that knee injury.
Both players started the match on serve until the 8th game of the first set when Querrey got his first breakthrough to take a 5-3 lead and serve for the first set. King was not going to go down without a fight and managed to create two break points of his own to get back on serve. Querrey managed to save both leading to a set point that King managed to save.
He even managed to get a third break point, but Querrey was up to the task of saving it with an amazing rally and winner. He managed to convert his second set point to take the first set 6-3.
Into the second set and again both players were able to hold their serves until we reached 6-6, which meant a tiebreak would decide the 2nd set. King played the tiebreak of his life and managed to win it 7-2 to win the set. With that, we went on to another match tiebreaker. King took the momentum he used to win the second set tiebreaker to beat Querrey 10-5 and thus win the match with a final score 3-6 7-6 (10-5).
The lead for Team Stripes was now 9-6 due to the fact that the matches on Sunday were each worth three points for a win. Next on the court, we had the Georgia Bulldog John Isner take on Atlanta native Christopher Eubanks.
The first game of the match proved to be a battle as both players brought their A-game and Isner even managed to earn a breakpoint. Eubanks managed to handle it and it stayed on serve until 1-2 when Eubanks got a break point of his own, it took 8 minutes but John Isner managed to follow suit and hold his serve.
At 5-6 Eubanks earned a set point on Isner’s serve, which he managed to convert to take the first set 7-5. Into the 2nd set and this time it was Isner turn to get a break at 3-2, which he held to serve out and win the second set 6-4. Once again we headed into another match tiebreaker to decide the winner.
The breaker was actually pretty tight until 4-3, when Eubanks played an amazing passing shot to increase his lead to 5-3. From there he kept on rolling and not succumbing to the pressure of playing a player who had spent the last ten years in the top 20. He won the match tiebreaker 10-5 giving him two wins in two days, and the tournament was tied at 9.
The third match was Taylor Fritz looking for his first win of the weekend versus Tennys Sandgren, who was looking to bounce back after losing to Eubanks on Saturday. Both players started the match on serve until 1-2 when Fritz got his first two break points of the match. He would break Sandgren’s serve to lead 3-1 and then hold to take a 4-1 lead. At 4-2 Sandgren came up with a breakpoint of his own and managed to convert it to get back on serve at 4-3. He would hold serve and from there he would break Fritz and take the first set 6-4.
Funnily enough, Fritz got break opportunities at the same juncture of the second set and this time jumped out to 4-1 lead. He would win the second set 6-3 and force a match tiebreaker. Fritz completely dominated the match tiebreake,r jumping out to a 6-2 lead and from there won the breaker 10-7 after an untimely double fault from Sandgren. Fritz won 4-6 6-3 (10-7) to give Team Stars its first lead of the tournament at 12-9 with one match to go.
The last match on court was Steve Johnson taking on Tommy Paul and it was a pretty simple scenario. If Johnson won they would play a seven-point breaker to decide a champion; but if Paul won then Team Stars would be declared the winners of the tournament.
Johnson had a roaring start, breaking Paul’s serve the first chance he got to take a 2-0 lead. He would hold to go up 3-0 but Paul was not going to give up that easily. He got on the board and managed to create a break chance of his own to get back on serve. The first set would eventually head to a tiebreaker. Johnson managed to jump out to a 3-1 lead and it was clear sailing as he won the breaker 7-2 to take the first set.
Into the second set and once again Johnson got an early break to lead 2-1. He would end up serving for the match at 5-4 and for the first time this weekend, he won a match without having to play 3 sets. He beat Tommy Paul 7-6 6-4 to tie the team score a at 12 and force a seven-point breaker to decide the winner of the tournament.
This time it was Paul’s turn as he came flying out of the gates and jumped to an early 3-1 lead. Johnson would come back to tie it at 3-3, but then Paul would rattle four points in a row to win the breaker and give Team Stars the victory over Team Stripes. All in all an exciting weekend for American Tennis as the ATP works its way to coming back in August.
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