6,000 COME OUT TO CELEBRATE THE GAME
The statue of “The Wizard of Westwood,” John Wooden, was outside the arena looking grand and professorial.
Up in the Pauley Pavilion rafters, UCLA’s NCAA championship banners spoke of a dynasty that still stirs passion. And all about the ghosts of Lew Alcinder, Bill Walton and Reggie Miller seemed to swirl.
But this wasn’t hoops
Rather this was tennis going through hoops to show that the game was not dead in L.A, not by a long shot. And the 6,000 tennis-loving folks in the arena’s snazzy refurbished seats, were not the result of some slight of hand trick. Rather they bought into Justin Gimelstob and Mardy Fish's belief that pro tennis in L.A. still had some magic. Never mind that the annual Farmer's Classic left town for Columbia, tennis still could go prime time in L.A. – at least for one night. Tennis could still rock the casbah.
Promoted by Gimelstob and Fish, The Tennis Challenge on March 4th featured the players with the finest serve and the finest return of serve of all time, (Pete Sampras and Novak Djokovic,) the best doubles duo ever (the Bryan brothers), a Fish (that would be Mardy) and chip shots, numerous breaks of serve, a broken net that delayed matters for 20 minutes, circus shots, a Serbian dance troupe, fans in birkas, boys with bright flags, a red carpet outside for gli
tz and a blue court inside the arena itself, which like the Super Dome in the Super Bowl, lost it’s light, temporarily.
This was L.A., so there was sufficient celebrity buzz including Bruce Willis, Jodie Foster and Dr. Phil. Okay, for the record, Tommy Haas (great backhand) edged James Blake (great forehand) in the preliminary. Three-time Aussie Open champ Novak Djokovic, who had flown in fresh off a triumphant week in Dubai where he hadn’t lost a set, continued his roll and won an exo set against Fish. But when he teamed with his idol Pete Sampras, the duo lost to the Bryans in the dimmest tennis light since Nadal beat Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon dusk.
But this night was not about losses or a net that broke or lights which lost their mojo. After all, on this night, L.A.'s once dim tennis prospects suddenly got much brighter. Gimelstob and Fish had shown incredible entrepreneurial daring and effective execution.
The night was a triumph. Now Hollywood was asking for a sequel and Fish said that The Challenge proved that L.A. would back a night of tennis and maybe next year it might be two nights and maybe, just maybe, in this time slot right before Indian Wells, someday there might be a sanctioned men’s tournament back in town.
And wouldn't that be one heck of a trick the tennis wizards of California would certainly applaud.
