File this one under “wildly unfair” and “comical.” This World Team Tennis features different rules than normal doubles Tennis and things got interesting/weird. The Eastern Conference Championships between the Washington Kastles and Philadelphia Freedoms pitted Martina Hingis and Anastasia Rodionova against Taylor Townsend and Liezel Huber.
During one of the games, Townsend accidentally hit Huber in the back of the head with a forehand and it forced Huber out of the match. In a normal tennis match, the match would be over and this would be the end of it. This is not normal tennis.
According to SB Nation:
The winner is based on the cumulative score of five sets of tennis — men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles, and mixed doubles.
This means that Townsend had to take to the court by herself and play 2-on-1 doubles tennis. To prevent teams from stacking the best returners on the side that is always serving in doubles tennis each player has to stay on their side of the court. So the result was Townsend doing nothing except staring at serves, occasionally trying to distract her opponents, while her opponents had easy aces.
Even the Kastles gave up trying and just served underhand.
The fact that Townsend was able to win any points at all is simply astounding and eventually the Kastles went on to win the overall match 21-15, thanks in large part to the 2-on-1 doubles tennis.
