The Royals are bannered by Mladenovic, reigning U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic, former champion Goran Ivanisevic, and doubles specialist Nenad Zimonjic. Their highest-ranked player, world no. 1 Novak Djokovic, did not make the trip to Manila with the team.
Yet even without Djokovic, the Royals are racking up the points, beating the hometown Manila Mavericks in their opener on Friday, and then downing the Singapore Slammers Saturday night.
"We're really glad to be two wins up," said Mladenovic. "We really have an amazing team."
"We see the other teams, and on the paper they seem incredible, the champions. We also have amazing players in our team, but we were laughing about it between ourselves yesterday," she added, noting that the Mavericks featured a line-up that included Grand Slam winners Andy Murray and Maria Sharapova.
"And we beat them," Mladenovic said with a laugh. "By my side, we also have Marin (Cilic), we have Grand Slam winners as well like Goran (Ivanisevic) and (Nenad) Zimonjic in the doubles, but still, you know what I mean, it's not quite the same."
Moreover, Mladenovic noted that the MOA Arena crowd was rooting against them last night as they were playing against "big champions."
"But we are enjoying and having a lot of fun, and I think our strength is that maybe, we want it more than the other teams," she theorized. "Even if maybe they are players with the bigger names, we have this team spirit, fighting spirit."
"We enjoy ourselves, push ourselves, and fist bump and jump all over the court and try to give each other support."
Mladenovic and the Royals hope to end the Manila leg of the IPTL on a strong note Sunday night when they play against the Indian Aces, with Mladenovic potentially taking on another crowd favorite in Ana Ivanovic in the women's singles.
"It's one more match. Lots of matches for me, and a fifth one tomorrow, and I'm definitely looking forward to it," she said. "Ana is a really good friend of mine. We'll try to enjoy and for both of us to play our best game and surprise the crowd, and I hope to win more games for my team."
source: www.abs-cbnnews.com
