Tennis: Serena Williams says "C'mon guys, relax!"

SINGAPORE - Even with big guns like women's No. 1 Serena Williams and eight-time Major champion Andre Agassi, the DBS Singapore Slammers continue to search for their first win in the Coca-Cola International Premier Tennis League.

Las night, in front of 8,000 fans at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, they lost 21-29 to the Manila Mavericks and are now rooted to the bottom of the four-team table, without any wins and just six points, 10 adrift of leaders Micromax Indian Aces.

One of the headline acts of the inaugural competition, which features a never-before-seen format, Williams took to the Indoor Stadium court less than two months after she collected her fifth WTA Finals crown at the same venue. The fearsome competitor emerged quickly as she shrieked and screamed after numerous unforced errors saw her fall behind 1-4 to Kirsten Flipkens in their women's singles encounter.

Cue the emphatic fist pumps and shouts of "Come on", as the 33-year-old American forced her way back to win the tie 6-5, and become the only Slammer to win a set last night.

With a laugh, she told The New Paper later: "Maybe we just need to relax a little. We want to win so bad.

"Maybe we need to take it easier and have more fun. We get so pumped up we are like pumping our fists... We are the most intense team.

"We are not happy to be bottom of the table, but we are trying and we are really giving it our all.

"I don't know about getting more wins (to move up the table), we're just looking for A win."

Agassi kicked off the Slammers' maiden appearance in Singapore, as well as his own IPTL debut. But his response to Philippousis' stream of booming aces was a string of wayward double faults as he lost 3-6 in the men's legends singles match.

Lleyton Hewitt and Tomas Berdych then lost to Treat Conrad Huey and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 4-6 in the men's doubles.

Berdych had the chance to pull one back when he led Tsonga 5-2, but let the Frenchman fight back to win the men's singles encounter 6-5.

SAME STORY

It was the same story for the Slammers in the mixed doubles when Nick Kyrgios and Williams went 2-0 up against Daniel Nestor and Flipkens only to eventually lose 3-6, before Williams won the final match of the night.

Coming in cold, Agassi admitted he was "shockingly uncomfortable" and nervous in his loss to Philippousis.

The 44-year-old said: "Momentum (winning or losing) is tough to stop.

"All those calls that could have been out or in by one millimetre went against us tonight.

"Tomas played a great match and could have won 6-2, but that one-millimetre call made it 5-6.

"Hopefully we can turn it around. We have two more days here to get back in it. If we can catch half a break, we can still win it in the home stretch."

Today's fixtures:

Manila Mavericks v Musafir.com UAE Royals (4pm)

DBS Singapore Slammers v Micromax Indian Aces (7.30pm)

*All matches at the Singapore Indoor Stadium

This article was first published on December 3, 2014.
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