WTA:”The Garden”: Vandeweghe looks forward to meeting the past

US open semifinalist CoCo Vandeweghe returns on Monday to where her grandfather Ernie caused a sensation in the New York Knicks basketball team. The Madison Square Garden is the venue for the highly endowed show tournament “Tie Break Tens”, in which Serena and Venus Williams as well as Marion Bartoli, among others, will be taking part, who will return to the WTA tour a few weeks later.

Goose pimples? Certainly! Special memories? Certainly! CoCo Vandeweghe is considered cool, but the walk in the Madison Square Garden will be for the world rankings-17th. for an emotional roller coaster ride next Monday night. The “MSG”, the mecca for many sports and music fans, this huge multi-purpose hall in New York City, which is located above the Pennsylvania Station in Midtown Manhattan, owns its own TV station – and very modestly advertises this slogan:”The World’s Most Famous Arena”.

Vandeweghe will be taking part in the “Tie Break Tens”, a tennis exhibition with eight starters – including the Williams sisters, Dubai winner Elina Svitolina and returnee Marion Bartoli. The game is played in the knockout system. One “fake” tie break each until ten. The winner of the show gets a proud $250,000. Oh, and another trophy.

Vandeweghe’s grandfather Ernie, who was a professional basketball player at the iconic New York Knicks NBA club between 1949 and 1956, played in the MSG,”He was definitely the driving force behind my decision to commit to this event next week,”explained the 26-year-old from the New York Post. The fact that the location of the arena has changed since her grandfather’s athletic high-flights doesn’t matter to her:”I know that he didn’t play in this’ Garden’, but he has run up in the’ Garden’. And that has a special meaning for me.”

Ernie, who died in 2014, had a great influence on his granddaughter, who was born in New York and was in the semi-finals of the US Open in 2017.”While I was doing my homework, he always threw something at me. Simply to make sure that I react quickly and am always ready to do different things at once,”said CoCo Vandeweghe, who will meet the Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova in the first round of Tie Break Tens. Serena Williams gets Marion Bartoli from France, Venus Williams “duels” with Svitolina (Ukraine) and the Romanian Sorana Cirstea plays against Shuai Zhang from China.