It was the forehand smash heard round the tennis world. And it was so unbelievable, it required a Hawk-Eye glance.
At 20 games to 20 and six-points-all in the World Team Tennis championship match, winning came down to one point in the final set: women’s doubles. Veteran doubles player Bethanie Mattek-Sands took her place at the net, while her partner, Sloane Stephens, of the Chicago Smash lofted the ball skyward. The New York Empire’s Coco Vandeweghe set her feet, took her racquet back and — against partner Nicole Melichar’s better judgment — ripped a down-the-line forehand that nicked the back of the baseline.
Cheers went up around Center Court, Creekside at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. Then silence. The Smash had decided to challenge.
“I could hardly put in thoughts or words what was going on — it was Star Wars out there,” said Empire Coach, Luke Jensen. “Genie Bouchard was hitting a ball to save her face, Kamau substituted Sloane, Nicole was flying around the net, and then Sloane hits a bomb to save match point. I called a time out and Coco was like ‘I’m taking next serve’.
New York Empire player Coco Vandeweghe after she hit the World Team Tennis championship shot (above) and being embraced by teammates Nicole Melichar and Jack Sock (below).
“Bethanie is then at the net with her ankles and instincts and Coco unleashes the beast right past her. Just the way the world is, I could go on and on how it could have gone sideways, but it didn’t,” Jensen added. Hawk-Eye confirmed the “in” call. The New York Empire had won its first King Trophy and the $500,000 purse.
In five years, the New York franchise, put together in 2016 as an expansion team, has come from the very bottom of the league to the top through three coaching changes, three venue moves and several roster switch-ups, including absent marquee stars. But after an exhaustive three weeks and 66 matches in a tennis “bubble” at the Greenbrier, the Empire’s match marked many “firsts”: the first time in WTT’s 45-year history that a championship match came down to one point; the first season in which all the matches were held in one location because of Covid-19; and the first professional tennis played with spectators in the U.S. since early March.
The “formula worked in this little laboratory of what’s possible,” said Jensen, who finished his second year at the helm of the Empire with a second berth in the WTT finals. Both Jensen and the team attributed a large measure of the Empire’s success to the addition of returning professional player Kim Clijsters, who also acted as the team’s assistant coach, manager, ball shagger, towel giver and ultimate court supporter, according to Jensen.
Kim Clijsters after winning a point for the New York Empire during a World Team Tennis match in July.
Clijsters, although sidelined for some matches, chalked up big singles victories — following an eight-year hiatus from professional tennis — against WTA No. 60 Bernarda Pera of the Washington Kastles, WTA No. 4 Sofia Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion, of the Philadelphia Freedoms, WTA No. 52 Danielle Collins, of the Orlando Storm, and WTA No. 37 Stephens, the 2017 US Open champion. Pairing up with Empire veteran Neal Skupski for mixed doubles, Clijsters helped secure clutch victories over Taylor Townsend and Fabrice Martin of the Freedoms, Jessica Pegula and Ken Skupski of the Storm, and Rajeev Ram and Mattek-Sands of the Smash.
“It’s tough sometimes to keep the momentum going, especially after I thought I was finished with mixed doubles,” said Clijsters after she came off the bench to beat Monica Puig and lock in the Empire’s 25-17 win over the Las Vegas Rollers mid-season. “Obviously, I am 37-years-old, so I know what I have to do to get in the mindset, but physically it’s not always easy.
But to get the Empire to that playoff spot, Jensen had to tinker with the team camaraderie.
Vandeweghe and Melichar had originally signed with the San Diego Aviators in March, but in an 11th-hour deal on the Sunday night before the season’s last week, Jensen traded Empire players Kveta Peschke and Sabine Lisicki for the doubles pair. “It’s not in the tennis culture to trade or substitute, so you don’t want them happy about it, you want them to say, ‘I can win, coach.’ But for the franchise you’ve got to at least get in the playoffs,” Jensen said.
Teammates Bethany Mattek-Sands and Sloane Stephens firing up during the tiebreak against the New York Empire.
The acquisition quickly paid off. In her first match for the Empire, Vandeweghe racked up 13 crucial games in three of five sets over the Orange County Breakers. In her second, she rallied from four games down and bested Freedoms’ Sofia Kennan in women’s singles. “My Uncle Kiki (former New York Knicks player) sent out a mass email down in his bubble in Orlando saying, ‘Coco’s playing for New York now!’” Vandeweghe said after the match.
Once the Empire sealed the fourth spot in the playoffs, Jack Sock became the star of the day as he and Vandeweghe took the Empire to an early lead by winning mixed doubles, 5-1, and with Skupski, men’s doubles. With losses in both women’s singles and women’s doubles, Sock delivered once more, defeating ATP No. 24 Taylor Fritz, to take the Empire to the championship.
“They played like they had nothing to lose and we played like we had everything to lose,” said Freedoms’ longtime coach Craig Kardon.
The New York squad jumped out to a quick start in the final against the Smash. The mixed-doubles team of Jack Sock and Vandeweghe and the men’s doubles team of Sock and Skupski brought the Empire to 10-6 lead (5-2, 5-3). But Smash rookie Brandon Nakashima reeled off a 5-0 win against Sock to swing the match in favor of Chicago, 11-10.
New York Empire Coach Luke Jensen waves around his lucky Billy Baru Wilson Jack Kramer Autograph racquet — the first racquet he ever used — and shouts his approval after the team’s win on Sunday.
“I think I would chalk that up as my worst set of the three weeks, and unfortunately it came on the most important day,” Sock said. With Clijsters still sidelined, Vandeweghe returned to the court to face Stephens in the fourth set of women’s singles. Stephens capped off a 5-3 victory to push the Smash lead to 16-13.
The King Trophy still remained near the reach of either team, as Mattek-Sands and Genie Bouchard faced Vandeweghe and Melichar, who had won a previous matchup 5-1 when they played as San Diego Aviators. It wouldn’t be as easy the second time.
Each team held serve to tie at 3-3, before the Empire broke Mattek-Sands’ serve to lurch ahead 4-3 and pull the team to 19-17. The Empire had the chance to win the set and force extended play, but Melichar double-faulted at 40-love. The Smash rallied to force a set tiebreak at 4-4 and had the momentum to capture an easy win and call it a day, as it fell on the Empire to not only win the set tiebreak, but also the next two games to tie the Smash’s overall score at 20-20 and finally compel a match first-to-seven-point super tiebreak.
The chase to seven points began with Chicago subbing in Stephens for Bouchard. New York went up 2-0 after Vandeweghe served. The Smash evened with Stephens’ serve. Mattek-Sands pushed Chicago ahead 5-3. Vandeweghe-Melichar knotted the score at 5-all, then 6-all, before Stephens served to Vandeweghe, whose knees hit the ground when she heard the word “in” from the baseline.
Billie Jean King, co-founder of World Team Tennis and the longtime owner of the Philadelphia Freedoms, waves to the crowd before presenting the King trophy to the New York Empire.
“They didn’t call an out… I was thrilled, but then the fact that (the Smash) were challenging (the call), we were like ‘oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no’ and then it was just pure joy. It was just incredible,” Melichar said
“I mean I’ve never been under that kind of pressure, ever,” Vandeweghe added. “It really accentuated what World TeamTennis is: the team vibe, team energy, people picking each other up when they’re down. I had so much fun out there.”
“A flip flop in the middle of the match… you couldn’t ask for any more than that,” said WTT CEO Carlos Silva, who dealt with weather, Covid testing, accommodation, press and managing players inside quarantine for a month. “And Coco’s winning forehand was like a walk-off home run, a buzzer-beater. My heart is still pounding.”
WTT owners have yet to take stock of the season, Silva said, but already plans are in the works for year-round events. “The results just continue to build on what we have been saying: the format was exciting, we had to grow the audience. The ESPN, CBS and Tennis Channel deals did that.” The final was watched by 500,000 people, according to CBS Sports, which broadcast it starting at noon.
Also, as the tournament season ground to a halt, the WTT had all of its marquee players for the entire season — a draw that also brought in viewers, Silva said. WTT owners are thinking big: expanding to 10 or 12 teams, and building such things as an Empire court on a Hudson River pier then looking to Europe to bring the sport global again after 2021.
“WTT has always found innovation, whether it’s the coaching, the cheering, the format,” said Jensen who affirmed his commitment to the Empire. “Is it the wave of the future? I think so. Tennis is a slow establishment, whereas Billie Jean and World Team Tennis is the movement.”