THE STARS WERE NEVER in danger of disappointing – not even when the tennis was on de rock.
Heavy rains and a delayed start to the series weren’t enough to dampen the mood surrounding Tennis Pon de Rock’s second edition as former women’s No.1 Venus Williams and her fellow world-rated drawing cards served up a great opening set during yesterday’s exhibition matches at the Sugar Hill resort.
The pair of laid-back mixed doubles matches provided an ideal start to the two-day festival, which initially came under threat when a torrential downpour set back the event by almost two hours.
But the act was well worth the wait, as Gael Monfils more than entertained his appreciative audience from the time he and Victoria Azarenka first entered the playing area just after 5 p.m.
Ironically, the Frenchman was the one made to wait. Despite a series of crafty half-volleys, near-impossible “gets” and acrobatic moves, the crowd-pleasing world No. 16 still couldn’t do enough to prevent him and local player Alyssa Fuentes from dropping their mixed-doubles encounter against Azarenka and Bajan No. 1 Haydn Lewis.
Worse yet, the fun-loving Frenchman had to wait until the match’s sixth game before he and Fuentes eventually got on the board, as Lewis and Azarenka regularly drilled him at net with fierce ground strokes.
However, he too found something to tee-off on. With John Isner clearly holding back on his usual bombs, Monfils and Azarenka quickly jumped over his and Williams’ serve as the unlikely French-Belarusian pairing raced to a 5-1 lead in their mixed-doubles affair.
The Americans did manage to provide a lot of entertaining net exchanges, none as good as the one that ended with Azarenka producing an acute angle crosscourt winner while backing the ball.
Williams and Isner made things interesting in that opening set, though, breaking Azarenka along the way to win the next three games. Monfils eventually served out the set at 6-4 before head-butting two volleys in play and going behind-the-back to recover a lob while he and Azarenka broke for an early 3-1 second-set lead.
Williams also entertained, although rather briefly, coming up with two backhand service return winners that whizzed past an unmoved Azarenka at net. But the Belarusian went one better, firing two backhand winners from deep to close out a6-4 second set.
It was a fitting conclusion to an entertaining night of festivities, which started with Monfils, Azarenka, Lewis and Fuentes trying to hit money targets on the court to raise funds for charity.
Even then Monfils was at his crowd-pleasing best, attempting to go between the legs on a drop shot aimed for the “money barrel”.
And the crowd wasn’t to be left out of the festivities either, with Englishman Shaun Miells challenging Venus to a US$10 000 game for charity towards the end of the proceedings.
