New Delhi: United Arab Emirates (UAE) Royals demolished Singapore Slammers ­­29-16 in the opening match of the Delhi leg of the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) to jump to the top of the standings here Saturday.

Royals were dominant right from the commencement of the match at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, winning four of the five matches of the tie to collect four points and climb to 21 points from seven matches.

Slammers remained at the bottom of the four-team contest, but improved to 15 points after seven matches, despite their loss, courtesy of winning more than 10 games.

Royals got an early lead when Croat Marin Cilic pulled off a 6-3 win over veteran Australian Lleyton Hewitt. Cilic, World No.9, broke Hewitt twice to build a 5-1 lead and looked set to provide Royals a sizeable preliminary lead in the tie.

But Hewitt, with a wealth of experience on his side, broke Cilic back. Eventually Hewitt went down but not before reducing the loss margin to three points.

Royals extended their lead in the next game, the men’s doubles, with doubles specialist Nenad Zimonjic and Cilic comfortably shaking off the challenge of Nick Kyrgios and Hewitt to win 6-3.

Royals held a seven-point lead over Slammers after just two matches and Patrick Rafter needed to pull out his US Open trophy-winning exploits in the past champions singles match to keep Slammers in the contest.

But his opponent – former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic – quashed all his attempts. In a match of two big-serving, serve-and-volley players, Ivanisevic broke Rafter twice to shut out the contest 6-1, swelling Royals’ ascendancy further.

The task for Slammers’ mixed doubles pair of Daniela Hantuchova and Nick Kyrgios was to reduce the considerable deficit as much as possible. They started on the right note, holding their first two service games but trailed 2-4, eventually going down 4-6 against Zimonjic-Kristina Mladenovic.

By the time World No.8 Caroline Wozniacki took to the field in the women’s singles contest against Hantuchova, Slammers were trailing 10-24 and had surrendered the tie but Hantuchova swiftly went 4-1 up and won 6-5.