WOW! Rock-N-Racquets was in Columbia, South Carolina on Saturday and it was an awesome event. Andy and Serena defeated John and Caroline in Mixed Doubles (6-4). Serena also defeated Caroline in singles, 6-3. During the autograph session I was able to get Serena to autograph my TENNIS Magazine (with her on the cover with the caption "Serena Williams #1 again"). Serena looked GOOD and her movement was great. She was hustling from every angle of the court. In one rally she tried to track down a short ball and ran into and over the net. She was not hurt and continued striking the ball cleanly and effectively and her serve was ok. During the mix doubles, Serena was handling Isner's big serves. Earlier in the day, Andy and Serena held a tennis clinic for the Boys and Girls Club of the Midlands.
Also after each game won, the "jumbo-tron" showed Grand Slam winning highlights of Serena's stellar career as well as her appearances on the TV Shows "My Wife and Kids," "All of Us" and "The Simpsons." Her awesome run to the '08 US Open Title was also highlighted. Mayor Bob Coble presented each player with the Key To The City. Andy had fun with our Carolina Gamecock mascot, "Cocky." At one point he did a wrestling move, pinned Cocky to the court and John Isner counted Cocky out. During the men's singles match Andy ejected the female chair umpire and she was replaced by Justin Gimelstob (who looked really tall). The matches were played in this order: Mixed Doubles, Women's Singles, and Men's Singles.
Andy did his infamous impersonation of quite a few of the ATP and WTA players (including: Rafael Nadal, Pete Sampras, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, Andre Agassi, and John McEnroe). Wayne Bryan (the father of the former #1 Doubles Champions, the Bryan Brothers) was the very entertaining emcee. Serena's hitting partner, Sacha, was also in attendance. In closing, Andy told the crowd that he can always depend on the Williams Sisters and that they do more off the court than we will ever know. Andy also let one of the very young ball girls play his match point against John Isner, which she won. All in all, I had a wonderful time and Serena looks quite fit and ready to win another Australian Open. This was my FIRST time seeing Serena play (live) and I was NOT disappointed.
Images courtesy of Rich Glickstein (rglickstein@thestate.com) and Erik Campos (ecampos@thestate.com)
1 comment:
you're soooo lucky you got a chance to see her and an AUTOGRAPH!! Nice recap, thanks a lot. How did Andy look?
Post a Comment