Venus Wins Shiny Thing, Much Cash
Posted by gauloises1 on March 2, 2010
So that made-up exo thingy I was talking about was last night – sorry, the BNP Paribas Showdown of Champions in Madison Square Garden for the Billie Jean King Cup – and Venus won it. Well done. She beat Svetlana Kuznetsova 64 before facing Kim Clijsters, who defeated Ana Ivanovic 76(2), and beating her 64 36 75.
Venus just wears winning so well. What a great month for her. Of course, she couldn’t have done it without the help of her supporting cast who each reportedly showcased their special talents.
Sveta emoted.
And Ana … well, you know.
And a good time was had by all. Or possibly not. I hear that the event was fairly sparsely attended but that the tennis was good. Linz, are you out there? What did you think?
Master Ace said
Watched the match on ESPN2 and there were some empty seats. Serena w/d was a big blow to the event. However, if I was the MSG organizers, I would try to have the ATP around in 2011 as attendance is much better at their events. If no one believes me, watch the Center Court at Indian Wells next week or Miami a few weeks later when the WTA is there and the ATP has a decent match on the outer courts. Marat and Gael at Miami had more fans on an outer court than the WTA had on the Center court.
naughty T....urbane gentleman said
will you be there MA?? how fab. We want stats on how much alcohol the TW girls put away!!
Master Ace said
No, I will not be at Indian Wells to give the inside scoop on the TW ladies.
linz said
This is Linz, reporting in…
I was going to take pictures and stuff, but I only took really blurry pics on my cameraphone, and I tweeted all of those, so there was nothing exciting for an I, Reportage really (I’ll do better at the AC Exo, I promise!)
But very quickly before I fall asleep at the computer, I thought it was a really neat event (I actually was expecting to not enjoy it, I wasn’t sure I could really enjoy tennis with no real stakes- does that make me a bad fan?).
Ana’s game looked pretty good to me- I mean, not GREAT, but not the disaster everyone’s making it out to be. She seemed much improved and i wouldn’t be surprised to see her get back to winning in the next couple of months. The coach looks good on her. Kim seemed sleepy at first, but once she woke up she was really competitive and fun to watch. She needs to continue working on her first serve though, but I’m sure that’s not news to her =). Sveta was Sveta- hard hitting, fast, but ultimately the match was on Venus’s racket. When Venus was on and coming to the net she just looked spectacular.
The Final was shockingly competitive. i mean, it wasn’t earth-shatteringly great tennis, but Venus came out way more heavily strapped and limping for the final, and Kim’s serve was off all night, but the competitiveness they both showed made it really, really fun to watch. However, it was really, really long and it was getting late and it just seemed ridiculous to me they didn’t play a Doubles STB to decide the thing, but both girls were still going after it- really, really impressive grit and a testament to both of them and their integrity and competitive fire.
MA, you’re right, there were a lot of empty seats, and ESPECIALLY by the end (the whole event could be tightened time-wise), which was good for me because I got to move a lot closer than my original cheapo tickets would have allowed!
The atmosphere was the most amazing thing though and what really made it- I still can’t find the words to describe it (hopefully Jackie isn’t reading this, LOL- I will I promise!), but it was special. Let’s just say it’s a good thing that Venus won =)
Hmmmm…I’m not so good at short answers, am I?
linz said
oh geez grammar…oh geez oh geez….