Maybe it wasn’t the most propitious of pairings. After all,they had never played doubles together.34 Grand combined Grand Slams is incredible,but there is a concept in tennis known as a doubles specialist and Jack Sock,coming off of a US Open doubles win and hanging on to the world no. 2 doubles ranking is such.
Sock teamed with South African and former University of Illinois star Kevin Anderson to defeat Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, 6-7,6-3,10-6 to give Team World it’s first point. Team Europe leads the competition 3-1 heading into Saturdays matches. The 3rd set,in the competition is a tiebreaker and Sock dominated there. Team Europe was not helped by a Federer double fault.
There wasn’t an empty seat in the United Center for the much anticipated match.
Federer and Rafael Nadal had played together last year in Prague and won their doubles contest.
Under the rules,the points are weighted,so the a win Friday merits 1 points, Saturday 2 and the Sunday singles finale 3.
Much of the crowd was rooting for a Federer win,but there was a loud element rooting for Team World, since that enco passes the USA.