NEW YORK—Before Serena Williams even walked onto the newly-installed black tennis court at Madison Square Garden—before she dodged the tantalizing flames that shot up from makeshift canisters along the courts’ perimeter—fans caught her image from backstage on the Jumbotron.
They screamed, clapped and roared. Poor Sorana Cirstea, the 27-year-old Romanian who had to follow Williams onto the court for introductions before the start of Tie Break Tens, the innovative one-night competition. The crowd, while polite, simply had no idea who Cirstea was. New York fans can be brutal.
The same was true for Elina Svitolina, the highest ranked entrant, at No. 4 in the world, who won more tournaments than any other player on the WTA Tour in 2017 and has already captured both Brisbane and Dubai this year. Only the Americans, Serena and Venus Williams and CoCo Vandeweghe, seemed to elicit huge ovations from the 7,000-plus fans in the storied arena.
By the end of the evening, however, it was Svitolina who had captured both the imagination and the collective hearts of the crowd by bullying her way past Venus Williams, Vandeweghe and Shuai Zhang to win the competition and take home $250,000 in winner-take-all prize money.
Tie-Break Tens isn’t meant to rival the ATP or WTA tours. It’s billed as a fast-paced warm-up exhibition for big upcoming events in Indian Wells and Miami, designed to put the pressure on players by making every point count.
The eight players in the single-elimination competition were a mix of top-ranked players like Svitolina, Vandeweghe and the Williams sisters alongside the 35th-ranked Cirstea, No. 33 Zhang of China, recently retired Daniela Hantuchova (a semifinalist at the Australian Open in 2008) and 2013 Wimbledon champ Marion Bartoli, who used the event to kick-start her return to the tour following her retirement four and a half years ago.
While criterion for entry into Tie Break Tens was supposed to be a one-time world ranking in the Top 10, wild cards were granted to Zhang and Cirstea. Presumably, others were unwilling to forego their preparations in Indian Wells to travel cross-country to compete for one night.
This was the fifth Tie Break Tens since 2015 but the first one held in the United States, and only the second involving women. Past competitors (in London, Vienna, Madrid and, this past January, Melbourne), have included Andy Murray, Goran Ivanisevic, Dominic Thiem, Simona Halep, Garbine Muguruza, Maria Sharapova, Jack Sock, Stan Wawrinka and Madison Keys.
Most players, especially in the first round, played to the crowd. Vandeweghe, who went down 6-3 to Hantuchova before winning seven of the next eight points, revved the crowd up the way she did en route the 2017 US Open semifinals. She even smiled, made funny faces and grooved to the music despite losing 10-0 to an apologetic Svitolina in just six minutes in the semifinals. Her coach, Pat Cash, seated in the stands, was less amused. Vandeweghe did, however, pull out her cell phone moments later to have her picture taken with members of the gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic hockey team, which were seated courtside.
Bartoli seemed to have the most fun, even though she was knocked out by Serena 10-6 in 10 minutes in the first round. At one point, the 33-year-old Frenchwoman ducked out of the way of a Serena serve. She even led the 36-year-old, 23-time Grand Slam winner 4-2, but back-to-back aces by Williams turned the tide. When she briefly prolonged the tiebreaker by successfully challenging on match point, she prayed to the tennis gods and then crumbled in joy at the outcome. One point later, she and Williams shared a huge hug at the net.
Highlights from Bartoli vs. Williams:
