High-level professional tennis returned to Madison Square Garden last night as a sold-out crowd witnessed Americans Emma Navarro and Jessica Pegula battle on the women’s side, followed by Spanish phenomenon-in-the-making Carlos Alcaraz squaring off against American Ben Shelton’s huge serve.
It was Navarro and Alcaraz who walked away the champions and holders of the so-called Garden Cup, but the 19,000-plus in attendance were treated to three hours of shotmaking, gamesmanship, and occasional scene-making along the way. (Both Alcaraz and Shelton, at different moments—usually, just after they’d blown an easy shot—handed their racquets off to spectators in the crowd for a point or two, to mixed degrees of success.)
Navarro, who was born in New York City, played an extremely tight two sets against Pegula (a finalist at last year’s US Open) before coming out on top 7-6, 7-5.
When we asked Pegula, a day earlier, why she interrupted her only real downtime from the pro tour to fly to New York to play an exhibition, she put it succinctly: “Honestly, if this match was taking place anywhere other than Madison Square Garden I would have been, like, nah. But as soon as I heard that? I’m in.”
Alcaraz and Shelton seemed to relish being on the court with each other, displaying a genial ease—at least when Shelton wasn’t serving one of his trademark blistering serves, which peak out at 150 mph. (There were audible oooohs in the Garden—maybe less of awe than of genuine terror—when his Mach 1-style weapon was first unleashed.)
Shelton took the first set, 6-4, behind that serve, and seemed on his way to beating Alcaraz for the first time—but the world No. 3 (and four-time grand slam winner) fired back in the second, taking the set 6-2 and evening things up, before sealing the deal in a third-set tiebreak.
After the match, the two threw their arms around each other. “Imma show you the guy who just beat me, but I hope we put on a show,” Shelton said, with Alcaraz quickly adding, “the highlight of the match was yours.”
“Yeah, he won, but I had the shot of the match, and that’s what matters,” Shelton replied, flashing his huge smile.
