Why the Cincinnati Open is so special — Quotes from Toronto
By Joey Dillon
The IX: Tennis Tuesday with Joey Dillon, Aug. 13, 2024
Howdy, y’all, and Happy Tennis Tuesday! As we get into the best part of the North American hardcourt season — the Cincinnati Open and I’m obviously not being biased — I thought it was time to reshare my (annual at this point) post about why the tournament is something you must visit on your tennis bucket list. Bring your entire family and visit Kings Island (literally) across the interstate. Have a 3-way from Skyline and then wash it down with some Graeters. Sure, it’s not Pimms or strawberries and cream, but Mason, Ohio really does show out for their tennis and it’s a unique and fun vibe.
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Last year, there were negotiations to have the tournament leave the area, but fortunately that won’t be happening for at least 25 years. It’s the longest-running professional tennis tournament in the United States with over a century of tennis history. Though it’s a staple for it’s Midwest hospitality and intimate views, the upgrades are constantly growing to accommodate the over 200,000 fans that visit annually.
I first visited the tournament when the men played the first week and the women played the following. In 2007, I had never been to a professional tournament except a $25,000 ATP Challenger final the previous year. It was a rainy day for second round singles and first round doubles action. I remember not being sure if play would even happen, but the crew — as always — did an amazing job drying it up. I got to watch Brenda Schultz-McCarthy bomb near 130 mph serves, Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sania Mirza tear up the doubles court but most importantly see how badass these female athletes were.
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In 2010, the last year it was held separately from the men, a friend I met through tennis hooked me up with a ticket and I got to watch Ana Ivanovic play No. 12 Victoria Azarenka. Ivanovic had dropped to No. 65 and the world had basically written her off. She clawed back from 2-6, 2-5 down to win the second set, 7-6(6) and eventually the third 6-4. She would end up reaching the semifinals, but the match ended up being a catalyst for her rise back up the rankings. That year, I also got to meet one of my tennis idols, Elena Dementieva. I used to have the same serve yips she did and related a lot to her struggles. Little would I know that only a couple of months after our picture was taken, she would retire from the game.
In 2011 and 2012, I volunteered with Transportation as an airport greeter, as well as being an usher in the stands. By that point, I knew I wanted to work in tennis somehow and getting some boots-on-the-ground experience would be beneficial. I remember Serena Williams’ dog Jackie escaping from her car without her knowing and bringing her back to the car only to hear the GOAT scold the dog saying “you scared mommy, don’t you do that!,” sitting next to Maria Sharapova in tournament laundry blinded by the jewelry on her hand and meeting recent Wimbledon champ Petra Kvitova.
In 2013 and 2014, I interned in the ticket office, but 2014 was even more special because by that point, I had accepted a full-time internship with the WTA and my eventual boss, WTA Supervisor Melanie Tabb, invited me to watch Sharapova play Simona Halep in Grandstand seats alongside Kerrilyn Cramer and Jenny Zhang, two top WTA umpires. It was surreal to be around important people who are the foundation of the tour, but it was the first time I really paid attention to how incredible the level of WTA play was. Sharapova’s power and Halep’s speed were show-stopping and the match went nearly three hours.
In 2015, I returned as a Digital Coordinator at the WTA, which became my full-circle moment. My career path changed a little bit before I got to return as WTA staff again when I was doing their social media in 2018 and 2019. By far, my favorite memory is creating this content with players and 90s technology. This tournament was the start of a reality for the teen who first visited a town known more for the Kings Island amusement park across the street with dreams of rubbing elbows with the world’s best.
If you ever have a chance to go to the Western & Southern Open, GO!
The experience gets better with every year. The grounds are getting bigger, the food court is getting wider and the tournament is getting closer to Miami and Indian Wells’ quality, in my opinion. The player fields are nearly identical to the US Open with the proximity in location and calendar placement, but the fan access is, without the hyperbole, 1000x better. Court 10 is perhaps the best hidden gem in all of tennis — a perfect sunken bubble oasis where top memories include watching Hsieh Su-Wei have Naomi Osaka and the crowd in the palm of her hand as well as sitting next to Jelena Jankovic’s team while she was going on one of her iconic rambles. Courtney Nguyen put it best, there’s no place like Mason.
On to links!
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This Week in Women’s Tennis
My must-read for you is this awesome piece on Tennessee head coach Alison Ojeda, one of my favorite college tennis coaches who coached her team to the Final Four weeks before giving birth to her and her wife’s second child.
Reigning champion Iga Swiatek is the first player to qualify for the WTA Finals Riyadh.
Jessica Pegula defended her National Bank Open title with a win over surprise finalist Amanda Anisimova. Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk won the doubles with a win over Gaby Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe.
Anna Bondar took home the ECE Ladies Hamburg Open with a win over Aranxta Rus before teaming up with Kimberley Zimmerman to down Rus and Nina Stojanovic to sweep the event.
Fresh off of the Paris Olympics, Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff both aim for continued success on the North American hardcourts.
The US Open announced that their total prize money pool will be a record $75 million, a $10 million increase from 2023.
After reaching the quarterfinals of Toronto, Taylor Townsend had to drive to make it to Cincinnati qualifying and she’s finding inspiration from Steph Curry.
After a luggage mishap, Naomi Osaka played her first WTA qualifying event since 2018 in Cincinnati, but ultimately fell to Ashlyn Krueger.
Congratulations to Molly McElwee, the 2024 Tom Perrotta Prize for Tennis Journalism winner.
Loving the WTA taking a page from the WNBA and giving us a look at the off-court fashion of the players.
Tweet of the Week
lol
Five at The IX: National Bank Open
Q. You’ve been one of the most consistent players on the WTA tour, how do you maintain that consistency week-in and week-out?
JESSICA PEGULA: Yeah, I think I always approach every match as it’s going to be a really tough match. I like to keep up and watch a lot and look at scores and matchups and different things. I don’t think I take any match lightly. I think the depth right now is really kind of, it’s really good, so I know that every day, no matter how well you’re playing or what the ranking is, that someone can beat you on any given day. I think I always kind of have maybe a little bit of an underdog mentality, no matter who I’m playing, if it’s a high-ranked or low-ranked player, I think maybe that helps me just not get caught by surprise on some matches.
Yeah, I think that’s maybe what helps me a little bit and why I’m able to win a lot of matches.
Q. To be able to play as sisters, that is a big thing, and coming to semifinals is a really huge thing. I was wondering, do you have any favorite memories from this tournament apart from just playing together, but still any favorite memories from this week?
LEYLAH FERNANDEZ: I think my favorite memory is, actually I have a few, the first one is our first-round match at the end when we won our first round, that was fun. I was glad that, not only was I able to win it my sister, but we were able to celebrate it a little bit with our dad.
Then my second favorite memory would actually be yesterday. I think yesterday we didn’t play a beautiful tennis match, but we pulled it off somehow, we were able to kind of lift each other up in certain moments. At the end of that match we did like kind of a high five, and the funny thing is we didn’t plan that, we didn’t even like talk about it, my sister just looked in my eye, and I looked at her, and we were like, Okay, we know what we want to do, so that was a funny moment that we talked about afterwards.
Lastly, my personal favorite, the top, top notch is when she was, as she likes to say, like gave me a reality check during one of the matches, so that was my personal favorite, because I haven’t had a partner who was able, who has done that.
Sometimes I do need it. Sometimes when I ask them, like, what is happening, what do you think I should do, she was strong enough and brave enough to tell me what to do and how she viewed the match, and that kind of snapped me out of my little funk there.
BIANCA FERNANDEZ: You know, other than, like you said, playing with my sister, and like she said, celebrating with our dad and her, I just find that during this tournament it was training with her, a personal favorite of mine, and getting to see family that we haven’t seen in years, getting to at least say hello, hug them after the matches. I haven’t seen my grandfather in so many years, so it was very heart warming to see him. It’s shown how many years has passed, so I felt bad at the same time.
Then, just for me it’s personally learning, having to, I stepped away from school this summer, and I just, I’m absorbing everything, even though some messages aren’t directed to me, I’m just learning, learning from my sister, learning from my dad, from the hitter, from Abdul the fitness coach, everything, just absorbing.
Q. How has your approach changed since you’ve come back in those tougher moments, have you seen a change in yourself and how you approach when things maybe aren’t going well?
AMANDA ANISIMOVA: I think that even in juniors, like for many years I’ve had a lot of matches that I’ve been mentally strong, and I’ve obviously pushed through so many difficult things. There have been moments in matches where I haven’t been able to do that as well. Yeah, like taking last year off, I think that I really had the time to prepare myself for hardships like that, or challenges that I could face, and I have the tools to help me in those moments, but I think that deep down I’ve always had that mental toughness to push through pain or a challenge.
Q. What does a result like this, making the semis of such a big tournament, do for you moving forward this year? Does it adjust your goals at all, are you looking for top 10, are you thinking of WTA Finals potentially, does this give you that boost of confidence to think about those kind of things?
EMMA NAVARRO: Yeah, for sure. It’s pretty crazy that being top 10 could be on the horizon for me, it’s definitely exciting and motivating, for sure.
Then, yeah, of course, I haven’t really thought too far ahead, but, yeah, WTA Finals would be an amazing opportunity, so for sure a little bit of a boost of confidence, just knowing that I can play at this level.
Q. Could you just talk about your game throughout the whole tournament as a doubles team and just key factors that added to your success.
ERIN ROUTLIFFE: Yeah, I think first tournament on hard court, we’re trying to figure out our game again. Changing surfaces is never easy.
GABRIELA DABROWSKI: And balls.
ERIN ROUTLIFFE: Yeah, true, balls. Yeah, I think we’re an aggressive team, we like to play on our terms, make a lot of play calls, first serves, and we like to get a lot of first touches off the serve, and that’s probably when we’re playing our best, so I think that’s something that we definitely improved on in comparison to yesterday and the day before is we had a lot more rallies. Today it was like more, yeah, like she said, clinical. Yeah, I think we’re just trying to get better every match, and I think that from yesterday to today definitely we got better, so I think that’s something we’re pretty proud of, and we’ll try to do it again tomorrow, I think.
| Mondays: Soccer |
| By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer |
| Tuesdays: Tennis |
| By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer |
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