Given the bracing cold of this New York winter, the sight of
tennis, with its perpetually tanned competitors, doing (something
approximating) battle in midtown Manhattan was as sure a sign of the spring
thaw underway as the sudden vanishing of our street corner slush ponds.
So how did this Showdown fare as an exhibition event? Let’s go to the checklist.
·
Witty banter between opponents? Check.
·
Circus shots, including a tweener or two? Check.
·
Cute kid “randomly” plucked from the audience?
Check.
·
That kid being a ringer who knows how to wield a
racquet well enough to take softballs from the pros? Check.
·
Some spellbinding tennis that almost makes you
forget that these aren’t fully competitive matches. Check.
All in all, the event succeeded.
The proceedings kicked off with Seles and Sabatini
commemorating the 25th anniversary of their 5-set (yes, you read
that correctly, 5-set) final at the WTA Championships, which were previously
held in Madison Square Garden. The match would be much shorter yesterday, an
8-game pro set in which Seles appeared to often be tentative. The famously
two-handed ball striker often resorted to one-handed gets and her
famous/infamous “aah-eeh” grunt took a while to get fully fired up, but still
it was a joy to see Seles on court, for one of her very few exhibitions since
leaving the game due to injury in 2003.
For her part, Sabatini, despite nearly two decades off the WTA
circuit looked firmly in control of her game, opening up her shoulders and
wailing on more than a few big forehand winners. A day earlier, she demurred when asked if she
would like to play more often in a seniors-tour type format. “We play tomorrow,
and that’s it,” she smiled echoing Seles’ comments. “I’m just very excited to
be at Madison Square Garden and it is going to be a celebration tomorrow. We
will have fun.”
The Argentine (who looks as if she hasn’t aged a day since
she left the tour) shocked the crowd, not so much by winning the friendly tussle
8-5, but by revealing to on-court interviewer Patrick McEnroe that before
prepping for the Showdown she hadn’t hit a tennis ball since 2009.
It was clear though from the late-arriving crowd and the
general energy level in the building that the star attractions were Federer and
Dimitrov, the latter of whom was playing the World’s Most Famous Arena for the
first time. The arrival of the ATP
legend and his presumptive understudy, famously nicknamed “Baby Fed,” kicked
the decibel level up by more than a few notches. Dimitrov, though an affable presence throughout,
wasted little time with pleasantries once play commenced. After quick, brilliant opening service holds
from both guys, Dimitrov broke at love on his next opportunity, surging into a
first set lead that he wouldn’t give back en route to winning the opening
stanza 6-2 in just 22 minutes.
The assembled audience began to murmur and at times vociferously
cheer for Federer and the Swiss superstar had no intention of disappointing his
assembled faithful. A point that featured back-to-back tweeners from Dimitrov
and Federer, before Dimitrov sailed a reply long highlighted the second set,
which Federer would win in a blitzkrieg, 6-1. The fun, spirited match would go
to a deciding third set where Dimitrov would take a circus point of his
own. Federer smacked an errant shot that
sailed up near the jumbotron that hovered above the court, the ball came down
quickly and landed smack in between Dimitrov’s legs. Dimitrov bounced backward to avoid touching
the ball and after a couple rally shots took the point en route to winning the
third set and the match 6-2, 1-6, 7-5.
Despite his first public win over the legend, Dimitrov was
quick to play down the result as a harbinger of things to come. “Of course it’s
just an exhibition,” he said, “but obviously for me it was more important to
get out there, embrace the atmosphere for not only me, but also the opponent
that I’m playing against. In the end I’m playing against Roger and I have so
much respect for him.”
There’s a necessary distance between the slush ponds of
early March and the sweat pools of late August, but the thaw always starts
somewhere. The BNP Paribas Showdown kicked
off the journey into the heart of the tennis calendar (defined roughly as the
period between Indian Wells and the US Open) last night in style.
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