The annual “Garden Party” for tennis took place Monday night at Madison Square Garden.
The annual BNP Paribas Showdown provided New York City with its “tennis fix” exactly six months before the summer’s city tennis showcase – the US Open – as Caroline Wozniacki, Maria Sharapova, Andy Roddick and Roger Federer entertained with exhibition tennis and fun hijinks that provided smiles and laughs for all 18,000-plus fans on hand.
Exhibition tennis is sometimes tough for real tennis aficiandos to swallow – all participants Monday seemed to going at about 70 percent speed – but hardly a fan left feeling unsatisfied with their entertainment experience. After all, any chance to see stars of this caliber perform their craft in a setting such as the “World’s Most Famous Arena” is something to highlight water-cooler conversations and tennis club chatter among those who attended or watched on ESPN2. However, these post-mortem conversations are not about Roddick’s screaming forehand passing shots that broke Federer’s serve or Sharapova’s clutch drop volley down break point in the second set. This was not “real tennis” with something on the line. This was fun. This was pure exhibition entertainment. This was a party – a celebration of tennis.
Fans are more likely to talk more about Wozniacki grabbing a young girl and dancing with her on court, and Sharapova also obliging, picking out a older male business executive and also strutting to the music on the other side of the night. Or Federer hitting his famous “tweener” and then teeing up Roddick to try and turn the same trick during the same rally (although Roddick failed to execute the shot, causing him to jokingly toss his racquet in Federer’s direction, nearly hitting a ball girl by accident. Almost all exhibitions feature the obligatory “imitations” – and this one did not disappoint (or DID disappoint to the tennis purists.) When a fan yelled from the rafters “Come on Rafa!” Roddick rolled up his sleeves and did his best impression of Rafael Nadal that he could muster – grunts and all!
The unequivocal highlight of the night was when Wozniacki enticed her boyfriend Rory McIlroy, enjoying his first day as the No. 1 ranked professional golfer in the world, out of the stands to play a point against Sharapova (winning it, causing Sharapova to jibe after the match that he won almost as many points as Caroline did against her.)
For the record Sharapova defeated Wozniacki 6-3, 6-4 and Roddick beat Federer 7-5, 7-6 (7). But that was what hardly mattered.