Tennis Night

Tennis night in America began as a morning meeting with the stars beneath chandeliers. 

“Turn right at the second chandelier and you’ll find Venus,” the concierge said, offering memorably precise directions to the setting for this morning’s player press conference at the Jumeirah Essex House on Central Park South in Manhattan.

The opulence of Essex house will give way to a tennis return to the mecca, Madison Square Garden, tonight at 7:30 for the BNP Paribas Showdown for the Billie Jean King Cup.

The three women who are the four reigning Grand Slam champions — World No. 1 Serena Williams, the Australian Open and US Open champion, Wimbledon winner Venus Williams and Roland Garros champ Ana Ivanovic — join 2008 US Open finalist Jelena Jankovic in a one-night only single elimination event which will also celebrate tennis legend Billie Jean King. The evening kicks off at 6:50 p.m. when Brooklyn’s Gail Brodsky plays Sloane Stephens in a match of young Americans.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased at the Madison Square Garden box office, all ticketmaster outlets and online at www.thegarden.com.

Venus is the only one of the four who has played Madison Square Garden (Ivanovic and Jankovic said they have yet to step foot in MSG) and said the prospect of playing in the World’s Most Famous Arena was an alluring proposition.

“I had a chance to play and I was immediately ready,” Venus said. “I was like ‘Where do I sign?’ It’s exciting. Growing up in the USA, I would see all the events at the Garden. I had a chance to play in the Garden in ‘99; that was many years ago. I think this will be an even better event for me because I’ll have a chance to win the event so all of us are very excited.”

The four players competing in tonight’s exhibition were seeded based on their 2008 year-end rankings. The 2008 year-end No. 1 Jankovic is the top seed and will play Venus, who closed the year at No. 6, in the first semifinal slated to start at 7:30 p.m.  The second semifinal pits Serena, who finished 2008 No. 2 but has now regained the No. 1 spot, against Ivanovic, who ended 2008 at No. 5. Both semis are one set with no-ad scoring.

When the two semis are completed, former President Bill Clinton Olympic figure skating gold medalist Sarah Hughes, two-time Olympic figure skating medalist Nancy Kerrigan, and Billie Jean King’s former mixed doubles partner, Owen Davidson, are among those who will be on hand to pay tribute to King.

The best of-three-set final between the semifinal winners will close out the evening exhibition.

The “BNP Paribas Showdown for the Billie Jean King Cup” not only marks the return of women’s tennis to Madison Square Garden, it also signals the return of tennis to HBO, former domestic television home of Wimbledon, which will carry live coverage beginning today at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time. Queens natives John McEnroe and Mary Carillo will call the action accompanied by King.

The event marks the first time professional women’s tennis will be staged at Madison Square Garden since MSG hosted the season-ending Chase Championships (now known as the Sony Ericsson Championships). Martina Hingis beat Monica Seles, 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-4, in the final staging of the season-ending WTA Tour Championships in New York City in November of 2000 before the WTA Tour moved the event to Germany and then Los Angeles and Madrid.

It was a year ago that Roger Federer and Pete Sampras sold out Madison Square Garden for their nationally-televised exhibition. StarGames promoter Jerry Solomon, who is married to Kerrigan, went to work almost immediately to assemble the women’s exhibition.

 All four participants received their baptism in tennis from non-traditional tennis areas far from the bright lights of Broadway — the Williams sisters learned to play on the cracked public courts of Compton, California, while Ivanovic grew up in the cramped confines of a Belgrade swimming pool.  

Venus drew a collective laugh from the assembled media when asked to comment on how the adversity she’s faced in rising from the cracked public courts of Compton, California to the Wimbledon championship, has shaped and strengthened her life and career. 

“Well, I haven’t had too much adversity the last 15 years,” Venus said with a smile. “Maybe adversity across the net…” 

King, like the Williams sisters, was a product of the public park system in her native Long Beach, California and she points to the fact that the sacrifices and struggles both the sisters and Serbians faced in their development seems to be a price too profound for many American juniors to make today. 

“I think all the Serbian players have a deep appreciation of what tennis is doing. They know how fortunate they are,” King said. “They have a deep appreciation and I think that’s one of our challenges in America: we have so much access to so much that it’s very difficult for our young people to stay focused. We have a saying you gotta play at least 10 years to hit a lot of balls to be a champion, but most kids today can’t wait more than 10 seconds. It’s gonna be harder and harder (to develop champions in the United States). You really don’t know character until its revealed. Tennis reveals your character. Every single day of my life I use something that I learned from tennis. Every single day I go right back to the tennis court and use it in the present.”

King has first-hand experience in the power exhibition matches can produce in attracting attention to the sport: the Hall of Famer played one of the most widely viewed matches in history against Bobby Riggs in the famed “Battle of the Sexes” held at the Houston Astrodome on November 20, 1973. The 29-year-old King seized the moment and defeated the 55-year-old Riggs in straight sets, forever changing the landscape of women’s sports and helping to empower the women’s movement.  A full 26 years before that match, Riggs faced Jack Kramer in Kramer’s pro debut staged at the old Madison Square Garden on December 26, 1947.  Despite a snowstorm that match was a sell-out.

The biggest snow storm of the winter season dropped more than nine inches of snow on New York City overnight, forcing a rare public school closing, and the storm — as well as the fact forecasters are calling for near-record low temperatures tonight — will likely hurt attendance by slowing walk-up ticket sales.

Regardless of how many people are inside MSG tonight, the USTA is looking beyond the Garden to plant the seeds of interest in the game among parents and children in continuing to try to grow and cultivate the game domestically.

Through tonight’s “Tennis Night in America”, which marks the USTA’s first-ever National Registration Night where kids and teenagers can sign up for spring and summer league play, the USTA is hoping to both attract new players and regain lapsed players by promoting what it calls “among the largest ever grass roots initiatives the sport has ever seen.”

The USTA, the national governing body for the sport, will make this event a major component for its first-ever National Youth Registration Night, where kids and teenagers all over the country can begin signing up for spring and summer league play.

Kurt Kamperman, USTA Chief Executive, Community Tennis, said the White Plains, N.Y.-based Tennis Association has registration drives and viewer parties scheduled for all 50 states from public parks to pizza places encouraging parents and kids to sign up now for spring and summer tennis recreation programs.

 ”We’re gonna use this event to help more kids get engaged in tennis,” Kamperman said. “Tennis is the fastest growing traditional sport in the US. We have almost 27 million players and our frequent player status is growing. We’re always looking at more platforms to expose the game to youth. Our biggest competitor is passive activities, we know about childhood obesity and all the things taking up kids’ time. To be able to have this platform in March, which traditionally isn’t a tennis space a lot of the country, gives us a start getting kids into the park and rec signup period for programs.”

For King, building a buzz  for tennis is just one of the byproducts of a night she sees as the opportunity for building connections between the game and participation. 

“Each person will take whatever their own truth is back home tonight,” King said. “I think everyone will get something very positive out of it. One thing as a player it’s very impotant to watch the best. When you go out to play tennis yourself whatever level you play at it will help you play better. When I don’t watch it a lot I don’t play as well. I don’t think people appreciate the osmosis that happens by watching tennis. I hope people go home and think about being in our sport in some way. I think each person will go away with a warm fuzzy feeling and be more connected to our sport.”